[2025] UKUT 186 (AAC)

The effect of the above analysis is twofold. First, the FTT materially erred in law in deciding that the claimant remained entitled to WPA between 29 July 2019 and 24 October 2012. Second, it further erred in law in failing to arrive at the only conclusion which was open to it on the law and the evidence. That conclusion was that the claimant was not entitled to, and so had been overpaid, WPA between 29 July 2019 to 24 October 2012, because he was not entitled to child benefit been those dates. I therefore set aside the FTT’s first decision, about whether the claimant had been overpaid WPA between 29 July 2019 and 2021, and remake that decision by dismissing the claimant’s appeal against the Secretary of State’s decision of 12 January 2022 that he had been overpaid WPA of £13,546.54 for the period 29 July 2019 to 24 October 2021.

The sole basis for the FTT deciding there was no recoverable overpayment under section 71 of the SSAA was because of its first decision that there had been no overpayment of WPA. It therefore did not need to address its mind to whether, if there was an overpayment, it was recoverable from the claimant under section 71. Given my decision that the claimant was overpaid WPA between 29 July 2019 and 24 October 20221, the issue of whether that overpayment is recoverable from the claimant will need to be remitted to a new FTT to be redecided.

I therefore allow the Secretary of State’s appeal in the terms set out above.