CCM8290 - Closing the Examination

Who will meet the settlement? - A couple where one is an innocent partner

Where you are satisfied that one of the partners did not know about the fraud or neglect, you must not ask that partner to repay the overpayment or pay a penalty. The settlement must be with the other partner as if he/she was a single claimant.

In some cases there might have been more than one error and it is possible for a partner to be aware of one error but not another error. In these cases you will need to split the overpaid credits and penalties between them in a reasonable manner. You might then be asking one of them to enter into a letter of offer in their own right for the error only they knew about and then ask them to enter into a separate letter of offer in joint names. There will then be 2 separate settlement charges for the Accounting & Payments Service, Network Unit to pursue.