Will I have to repay carers allowance?

[Hol12]

Hello,
I stopped being a carer in April, I reported this change online straight away. A few months passed and i was still receiving the carers allowance so I called to check they had received my info, they confirmed they had and that it may just take time to process. More months went by and still receiving the payment! Called again and they confirmed again they had received my info but it hadn’t been processed to their back off to action the change. Confirmed it was their mistake. Finally I have stopped receiving the payments. I called yesterday to ask if I now have to repay the past 6 months worth of payments, lady on the phone said there are notes to say it was their mistake and there is nothing in my notes saying that I have to repay at the moment. Does anyone know if I will have to repay under the circumstances that it was their mistake?
Thanks

I had a similar thing happen and kept receiving payments for 14 weeks afterwards, this was around 18 months ago and I’ve not been asked to repay but I’m assuming I’ll get a letter at some point.
I’ve kept the money in a separate account so I can repay when they ask.

Yes, you most likely will have to….once they get round to figuring it all out. For us it was months and months later when the tax year changed I think. We got a letter saying we needed to pay the whole lot back.

Probably will but not until the next tax year….you will get a letter saying what you owe them and how they intend to get it back from you

Do you want to repay it?

No, you won’t have to pay it back. It has nothing to do with tax years. If you informed Carers Allowance online and they did not action the change on time it would be a non recoverable wholly official error. Usually the ceased to care decision is done at the same time as the overpayment decision. This will be non recoverable from the claimant.

Thank you this is what I hoped!

Well I was also receiving UC so it was deducted from my UC so I wasn’t actually ‘up’ in terms
of money. So I would need to receive it back from UC to be able to pay it back

Wow that seems a really long time ago though! I hadn’t been able to set it aside because there was a deduction from my UC so it wasn’t actually extra money for me

I got carers allowance for my OH when he had terminal cancer. I received payment for a few months after he died. This is normal it’s to ensure the carer has time to sort out finances after the person dies.

I didn’t realise that. That’s crazy. What’s the point of it then?

This happened to me too, and I was told the same. I haven't been asked to pay it back, thay was about 6 weeks ago

I think if I remember rightly there is a carers element to UC so you do end up being slightly up in money but not a lot at all!