Hi Larry myself and my husband are separated but we both receive Social Security disability and my children were receiving a benefit from me of 160 and a benefit from their father of nine hundred and something. I called Social Security several times in the past year and a half actually and told them that they were getting both benefits under me and I didn’t know if it was legit that they did and the gentleman that I talk to said it was a good thing that I called and that they would document n that he wasn’t sure he would have somebody call me back and nobody ever called me back and I just noticed in my checking account that they didn’t deposit the kids benefit from their dad this month. I never received any kind of notice.

In a nutshell I’m just wondering which parent they I am receive a benefit from or if it’s a combination of both

Hi. Children who are eligible for Social Security benefits on the record of more than one parent can only be paid on one parent's record. In virtually all cases, the record they're paid on is the record of the parent with the highest unreduced benefit rate. So, you were correct to question the fact that your children were being paid benefits on both your and your husband's records.

Based on what you stated it sounds like your husband's benefit rate is higher than yours, in which case the children should almost certainly be paid on his account rather than yours. I don't have enough details to know what went wrong in your children's case and what Social Security is doing about it at this point, but if your children have been receiving two monthly payments then Social Security will eventually be asking for repayment of any incorrect payments. They sometimes collect such overpayments by withholding a person's ongoing payments, but they're supposed to notify you in advance of any such withholding.

Assuming that the children are overpaid and if you are the representative payee for their benefits, you should receive a notice explaining what Social Security plans to do about recovering the overpayment that also explains your appeal rights. One of the options when a person is overpaid is to file for waiver, or forgiveness, of the overpayment. In order to be approved for waiver, a person needs to a) be without fault in causing the overpayment, and b) be unable to repay the overpayment, or recovering the overpayment would be unfair due to specific circumstances.

You may want to try contacting Social Security to ask them to explain what's going on with your children's payments.

Best, Jerry