Dependency claim, owe money back after divorce.

[Henrici]

Hello out there,

I just had my dependency claim  closed. I divorced in March and it took the VA this long to work the claim. I figure I owe them about $800. Will the full amount  be taken out of my next DD, or if not, how does that work?

Thanks for anyone who has info. on  this.

[broncovet]

Been there, done that.  They sent me a letter telling me I owed them $, except it took VARO 1.5 years to change mine.  Here is what I did.  

You will likely get a letter that you owe them money (but, maybe not, since they may not even worry about a few months.) If you do, you can apply for a waiver.  I "won" the waiver because:

1.  I explained I reported it promptly and the backlog is not my fault  

2.  It would create a hardship to have to pay the money back.  

I sent this to the debt management center, and the address should be on your letter, IF you ever get a letter.  

Bottom line, dont worry about it.  They may not take the money at all.  Its VA's fault they take so long to process this stuff, not ours.  Ask for a waiver of the debt.  Be honest, but explain how paying this back will be a hardship.  

More information is here:

https://www.va.gov/debtman/Submit_A_Waiver_Request.asp

 

[Henrici]

Thanks Broncovet,

Good advice, I filed the dependency claim [on ebenefits] the day after the divorce was final. I even called to ask they start reducing my DD immediately and I was told "you have to wait in line like everyone else" and to just put that money aside. Easier said than done when you are living month to month and slowly going further into debt anyway.

In another post I said how my lawyer told me my TDIU had been approved, however, the RO is talking it's time finalizing the claim. I would have thought they would do both claims together as 20 months of retro payments will have to be figured in and I was still married for 16 of those. 

 

[MikeHunt]

There's  nat'l non-rating teams that have no idea how to process claims, so dependency is done separately. VSRs HATE dependency.

Bronco is 100% correct, Debt Management Center (1 Federal Dr St Paul MN) is the VA (NOT VBA) office that does VBA debts. It's mainly in the same building as Kim Grave's RO, but, again, separate.

There's two basic basis's for waiver; Hardship and not substantially Veteran's fault. There's multiple reasons to deny a waiver, however.

The one you're interested in is not substantially Veteran's fault. They will ask you fill out a VA Form 5655, 'Financial Status Report' or FSR. Since you're not applying for hardship, explain you want them to process the waiver without the FSR.

Timeline IS important here; you must file within 30 days of receipt of DMC's '101' letter to stop collection.

interestingly, the waiver then goes to your SOJ (Station of jurisdiction) for decision, then back to DMC for promulgation. It's the RO's logistics office that has the Committee of Waivers and Compromise (COW or COWC).

You can then send DMC an NOD if they deny the waiver.

Who sends it to the RO ...

[Henrici]

Thanks MikeHunt,

Sounds like good info. I will see what the letter says but I don't know if I qualify if the VA is about to pay me  retro. And I don't know if I should throw a monkey wrench into that process right now. But like you said, dependency is a different department.