How to Deal With Social Security Overpayment

One of the worst nightmares that you may encounter when you're receiving social security is an overpayment notice. Now you might be thinking how anyone can incur his / her overpayment from social security. In most situations, it works like this. A man, while receiving disability checks, would work part time to supplement his income. He reported it to the Social Security Administration (SSA) that he's working part time so that any adjustments on the amount he's receiving for disability benefits would be adjusted (or stop disability checks from coming altogether). For some reason, the disability checks keeps coming, although there's no confirmation from the local social security office that they're going to stop giving disability benefits. After a while you will receive a notice from the mail informing him that you owed X thousands of dollars to SSA.

Given the circumstance, the recipient was diligent enough to inform SSA that he's receiving income from other sources, so SSA should have stopped sending him checks from that point. So clearly it's not his fault that SSA is still giving him benefits. So what should one do when he receives an overpayment claim?

Usually if the SSA determines that an overpayment has been made, they will demand restitution, even in cases where the error is their own. However, you can file a "request for waiver of overpayment" (Form SSA-632-bk). The form can be used to explain why the overpayment is not the recipient's fault and why paying it back would either be unfair or would place undue hardship to the claimant.

You can get the request for waiver form from your local social security office, then complete it and return to SSA. You should receive a reply from the SSA regarding your request (usually via mail). However if the waiver request is denied, the waiver situation can be granted consideration through the appeals process. You may have to bring the appeal before an administrative law judge - the same judge who decides on social security and SSI disability claims.

If, after the appeal process the administrative law judge deemed the overpayment notice justified, you can make a payment arrangement. SSA usually accepts repayment arrangements that involve fairly small monthly payments (repayments are usually are done in about ten or twenty dollars per month).

Of course, appealing for waiver for overpayment is usually inconvenient and also time-consuming and can be very frustrating if you end up having to repay. The best way for you to win the case of your overpayment is to get a social security disability lawyer who will arrange everything in terms of appealing before the ALJ and proving you not liable for SSI overpayment.