Dad who cares for son must sell home or face jail over £21k carer’s allowance benefit blunder
Almost 70,000 people have been overpaid carer's allowance by up to £50,000 due to "systemic failures or gross incompetence"
A DAD who looks after his mentally ill son has had to sell his home to pay back the £20,900 in carer's allowance he wrongly received.
This is despite the fact that the cost to the taxpayer of these overpayments is only around £110.
It was revealed last month that almost 70,000 people have been overpaid carer's allowance by up to £50,000 following "systemic failures or gross incompetence".
The average overpayment this year is just over £1,400 and ministers are now desperately trying to claw back these payments.
Those who can't face a £5,000 fine or prosecution.
George Henderson, 59, from Leyland in Lancashire is one such person who has been hit by this crackdown.
, he has been forced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to sell his home to repay overpaid carer's allowance plus fines.
If he doesn't do so by February 14 2019, he faces seven months in jail.
George told the broadcaster: "As far as I was concerned, I never done anything wrong. I don't owe the DWP a penny."
The BBC reports that the issue dates back to a "mistake" George made when he first applied for carer's allowance to look after his 37-year-old son John, who is also a heroin addict.
But for more than six years, the BBC reports that the DWP didn't notice that John was paying tax returns as well as receiving carer's allowance.
However, if George didn't claim carer's allowance, he says his son would have got disability allowance of £64.30 a week.
This means George was only claiming an additional 30p a week - or £109.20 over a seven-year period.
In August this year, George was found guilty of fraud at Preston Crown Court, fined, given a 32-week suspended sentence and electronically tagged, according to the BBC.
More than 400,000 entitled to an extra £3,000 a year in carer's allowance - are you missing out?
It comes after we revealed that millions of households are missing out on £10billion worth of benefits every year.
Meanwhile one disabled mum receiving carer's allowance said she “can’t survive” after going on to Universal Credit and has lost hundreds of pounds.
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