ESA overpayment

Hi sickasachip,

Do I presume correctly that when you say you claimed new style ESA you mean contribution based ESA, or do you mean the means tested benefit that used to be called ESA, but is now Universal Credit?
If you mean a contribution based version, then occupational pensions up to £85 per week are ignored. Over that, then your ESA is reduced by half of the amount over the £85 limit. (So if the pension is £105, that is £20 more than the limit, and hence a reduction of £10 needs to come off the ESA.)
If the ESA is via UC, then the ESA will be deducted £1 for £1 of the amount of the pension. (£40 pension = £40 deduction)
Under UC the legislation provides that all overpayments (however caused) can be clawed back by DWP. This would normally be done by a deduction in the current benefit amount.
For previous versions of ESA if there was official error (ie DWP fault) it was possible to argue that the overpaid benefit was not recoverable.
the Fraud department always seem to get involved in overpayment cases, and my experience of them is that they always assume fraud has occurred, and that taints any investigation they do. As you may be aware, a civil penalty of £50 can be imposed if DWP feel that you have been negligent/not given correct information/failed to act quickly to stop an overpayment growing.
So depending on the type of ESA, the overpayment may be recoverable. If under UC, there is no right of appeal as to recoverability. I would however suggest that you scrutinise the figures carefully. Get a full breakdown from DWP if you've not had this. Insist!!!
(You can appeal the amount to be recovered!) Also if there is any possibility that you were owed more benefit , or perhaps a different one which wasn't paid, then this could offset the overpayment and reduce it too.)
DWP still have a right to waive the overpayment, if repaying it would comprise serious hardship, or be very injurious to health. You would need to have strong evidence of either scenario - you would need to write in with the evidence.
Failing that you may wish to make a complaint to DWP about its maladministration, and ask for compensation. Not sure how successful waiving/complaining will be but nothing ventured, nothing gained. You may also wish to get all the figures etc checked by a qualified benefits advisor.
I hope this helps.

LL26