£1700 unexpectedly from child tax credits

[dubz]

We have an rbs current account and due to the current banking problems I was curious to see if our balance was being updated. We are fortunate and have a bit of a float in our account so don't check the balance that often as we are normally ok.
Looking at the account we found we have been made a payment of £1700 from child tax credits. We were not expecting anything. We have just updated our info and it's difficult to tell if anything has changed, previously I was on maternity leave and dh worked, now dh isn't working and i have increased from 4 days to full time, but it essentially cancels out or so we thought. Normally we get about £1400 for the whole year so £1700 extra seems an error. S
o wwyd? The money is a god send. It feels like we have the lottery. But at the same time it might be a mistake but then again we haven't had a statement for 2011/2012 so maybe it,s true

I wouldn't spend it until you've checked with tax credits first - but fingers crossed it's not an error!

Phone them and make sure its not a error on their part.

This happened to my mum. She thought it was a backpayment, spent it (it was much needed) then the buggers came back to her and said they wanted it back.

DO NOT touch until you are sure its meant to be there!

Well after much agonising about whether we should queary it or whether we should just keep quiet and keep the money, DH phoned the tax credits people this morning, and it's not a mistake! We have been underpaid for the last year. It's brilliant. Feel like we have won the lottery. Although we are managing ok at the moment money is tight and this really helps. Can't believe it though, most of me still thinks it must be a mistake.

That's great news

I had the same sort of nice surprise a while back. I phoned them to check because I didn't want to have to pay it back if it was a mistake. They work a year behind, so this was for a few months when my dh was out of work and took a minimum wage job to get by. Its all gone now though.

After a compliance check,I got a £7000 lump sum from them which turned out to be an error.But I got a letter saying they were not going to ask for it back as it was a mistake on their part.
As long as you are sure that everything you have told them is correct then they can't take it back.

Are you sure about that? Colleague of mine was overpaid and they had to pay it back.