I bane changed as very outing.
It’s a long story and I am prepared to be flamed.
Daughter was born with very very complex needs at this point I had never been on benefits before and knew very little about them. Here is the time line of what happened
( 2014 ) Daughter came home on oxygen and feeding tube was granted HRC from Dla
I got child tax credits with disability element to.
Daughter was admitted back in to hospital after going in to mutiple organ failure and so I never renewed dla as at the time if they were going to be in for a certain length of time you couldn’t claim.
( Shortly after which I didn’t know the rules changed to allow you to claim when in hospital do )
We never left hospital for 20 months.
When I renewed tax credits I asked on phone if I needed to update about Dla the man said no just income support etc as they can link the other things. Ok so confirmed I was still on income support.
Renewal comes in and payments hasn’t changed at all so still receiving disability element. ( I assumed this was fine )
No one informed me that we were allowed to continue getting Dla in hospital.
When we finally went home I assumed the rules were the same about not getting Dla whilst in hospital ( I wasn’t also not receiving carers ) because daughter was unstable I never re applied as it would be starting and stopping all the time we were still in 60-70 percent of the time at home the other times.
So anyway trying not to drip feed last year it was about August time I got a letter to state that they had been informed daughter was not disabled since 2014 instead of giving us an overpayment at the end of the year and reducing tax credits they stopped it all instantly and done it as we had been paid all we were entitled to that year.
Basically they calculated our entitlement for that year without disability element, then checked what they had paid us with and stopped payments until the end of the tax year.
I was told by benefits charity I could ring and ask them reinstate normal tax credits and then have an overpayment ( to pay back ) at the end of the year, however the lady in the phone when I rang said no you have had your entitlement and that’s that. ( ok I get if it was my mistake )
Anyway we were then left with 20 pound a month child benefit and 110 pound a fortnight income support ( we live in London and I pay towards my rent )
We were then nearly evicted and my daughter has pumps / fridges / machinery running all day and night plus gas in the winter on 24/7.
I put in an application straight for Dla which took a while etc and was then turned down, we fought it after months and was allocated HRC.
I then at the end of the tax year got hit with a 7k over payment from 2014-2016.
There was also due to the law change in Dla in hospitals meant to be Information in change sent to anyone who flagged on the system but me and a lot of other people was not informed. So actually since 2015 I was underclaiming 340 a month but because Of this no worries owe thousands.
Last year I had to lend a lot of money to pay the rent / gas / etc etc basically for us to survive and for me to eat when we were in hospital.
Which now I have Dla and child tax credits ( with disability element ) I am paying back monthly plus paying the debt to child tax credit back monthly Which is still leaving us is default every month. Especially the winter months.
I managed Xmas and birthday only because my DD was given toy vouchers by a company because of an advert she did.
But I feel like I’m worrying every day !
AIBU to fight this over payment or am I’m just being stupid because it was all my fault and I’m bloody stupid idiot.