I received a letter yesterday stating I have an ESA overpayment and need to pay back £51.32 a fortnight. As I receive £86.44 weekly this is a large chunk from my ESA payment. There is no explanation on the letter of how this debt payment has been arrived at. The ESA phone line doesn't deal with overpayments and at present I can't speak to CAB debt advisor as the line is constantly busy. So the next course of action is to write a letter to them. Can you suggest how to approach this as I'm struggling financially at the moment even before this letter arrived? Regards as always
The first thing you need to do is find out what was the cause of the overpayment, if it was an official error then you do not need to pay this back unlike UC where any official errors still have to be repaid.
You do need to seek help from your local Welfare Rights Organisation; you can find your local Welfare Rights Organisation to help you with advice by clicking on the link below and putting in your post code, it will then come up with a MAP with a list of agencies. advicelocal.uk
Gary
Nothing on this board constitutes legal advice - always consult a professional about specific problems
