I’m being chased for money after a van smashed into my wall

A VAN crashed in to my front garden wall, damaging it and my gate railings. I contacted my property insurer, Churchill, to ask it to claim on the driver’s car insurance.

A claims assessor provided a figure for the damage which I felt was far too low. I had sent estimates from builders whom I have used many times.

After much hassle, I agreed on a figure of £2,024, which I received at the end of March and had the builders do the work.

Two months later, I received a call from the driver’s insurance company saying I had been overpaid. The person on the phone had a strong accent and I found the call difficult to understand, being hard of hearing. I have asked to be sent the paperwork.

J. P., Bristol. My first thought was: could this be a scam? so may i say how wise you were to demand written confirmation of what the caller was telling you.

i contacted your insurer, Churchill, which was quick to apologise.

it says that one of its suppliers made an error when settling the claim, which resulted in you receiving £340 over and above the cost of the work required to repair the damage on your wall.

A spokesman says that, while the firm would usually request any overpayment be returned as per the terms and conditions of the policy, due to your personal circumstances it will waive the payment on this occasion as a gesture of goodwill.

i know from your longer letter that you are facing difficult issues, so i hope that everything goes well. MY STATE pension this year will be £8,466 and my NHS pension will be £2,981. My half of the interest my wife and I received last year was £1,337, but this year it will be a lot less.

I received a tax code of 294L for my NHS pension. I think this is wrong. They are taking only a few pence, but I don’t believe I should be paying anything.

I spoke to someone on the HMRC helpline, after waiting on hold for 50 minutes, but I got nowhere. He was talking about the interest on our joint account as if it were all mine.

I reminded him of the £1,000 tax-free allowance on savings interest, and of the £5,000 allowance on savings interest for those on low incomes. He went to check and I was cut off.

I called again and was told that the £5,000 savings allowance is ‘only for people who earn up to £18,500’.

I asked to speak to someone senior and was told that no one was available due to the coronavirus.

K. C., Westerham. CAses involving only a few pounds can be the most frustrating. is it worth spending considerable time bickering over a small amount of money?

But there is a principle here. there are tax rules and there is a tax helpline. Both should work efficiently.

you are correct. you should not be paying any tax on your income and if someone at the helpline does not understand this, they should be sent for retraining.

i’ve often said pensioners’ tax can be fiendishly complicated, and yours is a case in point.

Basically, initially we receive a £12,500 personal allowance. this is income from all sources, including pensions and wages, on which no tax is paid.

On top of this there is a starting rate for savings interest (if your income is less than £17,500), which is a maximum of £5,000 a year.

so you could receive up to £17,500 a year in pension and interest without paying tax.

then there is a £1,000 personal savings allowance (reduced to £500 for higher-rate taxpayers).

so theoretically, with a pension or salary of £12,500 and savings income of £6,000, you could have an £18,500 annual income tax-free.

those earning more than £12,500 a year have the £5,000 savings starting rate reduced by £1 for every £1 they earn above this personal allowance.

HMrC underestimated what your annual pension income would be this year and did not expect you to use up all your personal allowance, so it did not apply any of the £1,000 personal savings allowance. you are due a £1.20 tax refund.

As you say, this is only pennies, but i think the principle is very important and the fact that HMrC helpline officers did not understand is very concerning.

the lesson to all of us is to look closely at our tax codes as they can include estimates on things such as interest. Mrs H has had an error in her tax code for four out of the past five years. i cried ‘Hallelujah!’ when we opened the envelope this year and discovered it was actually correct. I CLOSED my Aqua credit card account in January because higher value purchases were being rejected as suspected fraud. Then my credit limit was reduced for insufficient use.

Due to Covid-19, I cancelled a booking I had with Premier Inn. I assumed Aqua would send me the refund as the booking had been made on the card and Premier Inn confirmed it would repay the £308.

As this didn’t happen, I rang on May 21 and an agent said I would need to put the request in writing, providing evidence of the refund.

Four weeks later, having had no response, I wrote again. Three weeks later, I still do not have a response or the money.

M. M., Stirling. AquA has now apologised and returned your money with some additional compensation.

A spokesman says: ‘We can confirm that this is currently being processed and should be in his bank account within five working days.’