Two sisters who were facing a $100,000 Social Security debt received some good news after Social Security decided to forgive part of the overpayment when it was determined the overpayment wasn’t their fault.
The sisters, Lynne Thurston and Beth Grensted, now both in their 60s, received a call New Year’s Eve from Social Security informing they did not have to pay back the $22,000 they received in survivors benefits as children, but no determination was made on the $87,000 their mother, who is now deceased, received in survivor’s benefits when their father was declared legally dead after a hunting trip in 1968. The only problem was their father was not deceased.
According to a story in The Washington Times, the sisters were informed that their father actually died in 2015 and had apparently faked his own death, assumed the identity of another man and fled to Arizona back in 1968. Because their father was declared dead it allowed the sisters and their mother to collect survivor’s benefits from Social Security for years, but when Social Security discovered in 2016 that their father had not died until 2015, the sisters and their mother received an overpayment notice asking for all the money back.
The sisters filed a waiver, something anyone can do if they receive an overpayment notice from Social Security, but it is to Social Security’s discretion whether or not a waiver on an overpayment will be approved. The $87,000 still owed by their mother’s estate is still up in the air. While alive the mother was ordered to pay back the debt in increments of $10 per month and upon her death the debt would be erased, but now Social Security wants the entire overpayment back. The case is under review of the Appeals Council, but a Social Security representative informed one of the sisters that the chance the debt is reassigned to the sisters is unlikely.
