Long term sick homeowner and landlord being investigated for Benefit Fraud


Question: Hi, where to start…

Yesterday I received a scary letter from the council asking me to attend a formal interview in accordance with the Police and criminal Evidence Act. It says I’m being investigated for Council Tax Benefit Fraud. To be honest, I have no idea if I’m guilty or not as I’m not even sure what it relates to. It says something about criminal proceedings being taken.

3 years ago, I was signed-off sick from work suffering from Depression and Anxiety. I’m still suffering from this, but when I left work, I got a good redundancy payout as I’d worked for the company for almost 10 years.

Due to my illness, my wife and I separated so I have been living alone. So the stress of a fraud investigation isn’t helping my illness much as I’m having to deal for this alone. The time is a blur in my mind, I cannot piece together anything that I’ve done in that time.

Before I signed off from work, I had a well-paid job at the time and bought a new house and kept the old house to rent out. Because of the housing crash, both properties are in negative equity, so I haven’t even been able to sell one or both of them to help pay the bills whilst I have been out of work.

About a year after I finished work, I began claiming benefits, but this and the rent from the property weren’t enough to cover the bills so as I didn’t want to lose everything, against my doctor’s advice I made the difficult decision to try and get back into work. At the time I told the Benefits Agency I was looking for work, and managed to get a small part-time contract (self-employed) for just enough to make ends meet.

The Benefits people were really helpful, and told me they’d sort out informing the council tax and not to worry about it. However, something went wrong as they both overpaid me, but they did assure me that it was all in hand and they were claiming back the money.

I then got a letter from the council asking for documents to support my claim for council tax which I assumed had been cancelled. After explaining this to them, they provided me with a bill for repayment which is currently being repaid.

All I’ve ever tried to do is keep them informed of everything, every step of the way and cleared up any mistakes with overpayments as soon as I became aware of them.

I suspect that this could be down to the fact that my rental property did not always have tenants, so my income has varied over the past 3 years.

Answer: When you describe the letters asking you to attend an interview you are spot on. Most people think they have to attend but that is not the case. Even if you do attend you need not say anything or even ‘no comment’ and even if they arrest you can still remain mute.

The benefits people you describe as being ‘really helpful’ but the following investigators are not your friends. An expert lawyer is what you need. He is not your friend either but can do more to help you than your friends can.

Consult Hylton-Potts, the experts who offer fixed fees, and give excellent value.

We operate a free and confidential 24 hour email service. Just click on [email protected] or,  during office hours, there is a free and confidential legal helpline 020 7381 8111.