Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber

[2024] UKUT 257 (AAC)

Fecha: 26-Ago-2024

Appeal to First-tier Tribunal

Ms CB appealed to the First-tier Tribunal.

The First-tier Tribunal grouped together and labelled the decision maker’s decisions as follows—

Decision 1: the decision maker’s five revisions of entitlement in the five claims.

Decision 2: the decision maker’s decision that there had been, in consequence of decision 1 and of the diminution of capital rule, overpayments totalling £18,052.38 (the award on claim 2 had been on the basis of £73.28 excess capital).

Decision 3: the decision maker’s decision that the overpayments were recoverable under section 71(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 because Mr YB had misrepresented the level of his capital when making each of the five claims because he did not disclose the value of his Hargreaves Lansdown accounts and those misrepresentations had caused the overpayments.

Decision 4: the decision maker’s decision that the overpayments were recoverable from the executors of Mr YB’s estate.

The First-tier Tribunal recorded at paragraph 8 of its Statement of Reasons that Ms CB’s representative, Mr Mikulski, had “confirmed that decisions 1, 2 and 4 were not in dispute”. Ms CB did not dispute that in the permission to appeal application. Strictly speaking, however, a challenge to decision 3, that the overpayments are recoverable under section 71(1), must mean that decision 4 is challenged to the extent that recoverability is challenged at all. I take the lack of challenge to decision 4 to mean that, if the overpayments are indeed recoverable under section 71(1), then it is not disputed that the person from whom they are recoverable is the executor to the estate.

The First-tier Tribunal on 17 August 2023 dismissed Ms CB’s appeal against all five recoverability determinations. The First-tier Tribunal made that decision based on evidence other than actual evidence of the paper or telephone claims made in this particular case.

The First-tier Tribunal refused permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.