Odesa District Administrative Court partially satisfied the claim of a displaced woman from the Kherson region whose housing allowance payments were stopped.
The court’s decision was published on the website of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
As stated in the decision, payment problems began in the autumn of 2022. As it later emerged, due to the system “Diia” two benefits were mistakenly issued at the same time for one of the sons – as part of a family payment and as a separate application.
As a result, the family received an extra 12,000 hryvnias. Instead of gradually recovering these funds, the social policy department simply stopped accruing assistance to the entire family. Because of this, the family was not paid about 130,000 hryvnias.
In court, social protection representatives explained that they acted automatically in order to prevent misuse of budget funds. They argued that the plaintiff did not apply for reinstatement of payments and should have known about the “double payments”.
However, the judge noted that the current procedure for providing assistance does not allow completely depriving people of support solely because of an overpayment.
The court concluded that the family had a lawful right to assistance, therefore the failure to provide it was a violation.
The Social Policy Department of the Kherson District State Administration is now required to pay the woman the arrears for the period from September 2022 through June 2023 inclusive.