I started receiving disability in 2018. At that time myself and my two minor children all three received a back payment check. Up until that time from 2016 up until that time my son was receiving a Survivor benefit from his father who passed away in January of 2016. He turned 18 in September and I filled out the appropriate paperwork to have him continue to receive his check until May when he when he is to graduate. Somehow a date. Wrong and my son stop receiving his disability check from me the past 2 months. Now Social Security is telling me that they withheld those two checks as overpayment and that my son owes Social Security $19,710 for over payment he received the the back payment check because of the survivor benefits he was receiving from his father. I don't understand any of this dual entitlement mumbo jumbo and I was hoping that you may be able to give me some insight on this. So that I could possibly file an appeal on this and prevent my son from having to pay this money back before he even gets started in the adult world.

Hi. Without access to your son's records I can only give you an educated guess. It sounds like your son was paid benefits on both your account and his father's account for the same months, which is not allowed. If a child is entitled to benefits on more than one parent's account for the same month(s), they can only be paid from one account, not both.

I have no way of knowing if the overpayment you've been notified of is correct in fact or amount, but your son can file an appeal if he believes that the amount is incorrect. He can do so by submitting a form SSA-561 (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-561.pdf) to Social Security.

Or, if you accept that your son was overpaid but feel that it wasn't his fault, then your son could file for waiver (i.e. forgiveness) of his overpayment. But, in order for his waiver request to be approved your son would need to be financially unable to repay the overpayment, or collection of the overpayment would have to be deemed by Social Security to be against equity and good conscience. To file for waiver, your son would need to complete and submit a form SSA-632 (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-632.pdf).

For more information about options with regard to overpayments, refer to the following Social Security website: https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-632.html.

Best, Jerry