Advokit
Your Citizen's Income Tool
FAQ
I believe that my decision is incorrect or has been unlawfully rejected. Can this be?
If you have received a decision from your job centre that you think is incorrect, has been wrongly rejected or you simply want a check, contact us using our free of charge Citizen's Income Tool.
Unfortunately, errors very often creep into modesty reports. Therefore, do not hesitate to contact us. We will file an appeal on your behalf if the decision is incorrect.
FAQs
General
Yes, our work for you costs you nothing. If we find that your decision is correct, we will inform you of this and you will not incur any costs. If we find that your decision is incorrect, we will file an appeal or a lawsuit on your behalf. The costs incurred will then be paid by the state.
We only need you to send us the necessary documents, e.g. a power of attorney, so that we can act for you at all and the Job Centre's notices. We will let you know which other documents we need.
Once again: You will be met by none legal fees or court costs.
The notification of approval should basically contain all relevant information about the benefits applied for. First of all, this includes your personal details, i.e. surname, first name, address and date of birth. In addition, it should also include
- the data of the case worker(s) including contact details,
- the data of the community of need,
- the period for which the benefits are granted,
- the payee,
- the amount of benefits including a breakdown by need and person,
- any additional requirements,
- the costs for accommodation and heating,
- the benefits for health, long-term care and pension insurance,
- an instruction on how to appeal, and finally
- the calculation sheet
If you have received a rejection notice, the reasons for the rejection should also be explained.
If something is missing from your decision, you should not hesitate to lodge an objection. Please feel free to contact us via the free of charge Citizen's Income Tool.
Often, costs are calculated too low, incorrect charges are made or additional needs are denied. It can also happen that an application is unlawfully rejected altogether. You will then receive a so-called "Rejection Notice". There can be many reasons for this, for example, incorrect calculations or incorrect assessment of your need for assistance by the Job Centre.
We can check all these cases for you free of charge. Contact us, via our free of charge for you Citizen's Income Tool.
If you send us your decision and a signed power of attorney, we will first check your decision for errors. If it is incorrect, we will lodge an appeal with the Job Centre on your behalf. If the Job Centre upholds the appeal, you will receive a refund of unpaid benefits. It is also possible for us to take legal action on your behalf.
An annex to the notification of approval is the calculation sheet. The exact calculation of all benefits is broken down there. The following details are listed including the euro amounts:
- Standard requirement
- possible extra demand
- Hot water production
- Basic rent
- Heating costs
- Service charges
- Income from gainful employment to be taken into account
- Other income to be taken into account (e.g. child benefit)
The individual amounts are added together and the income to be taken into account is deducted. Usable assets are also taken into account. This results in the monthly benefits for the entire community of need according to the notification of approval.
A provisional award decision means that your application has not yet been finally examined or that the Job Centre is not sure whether all the information will remain valid for the entire award period. The Job Centre uses the provisional award decision to determine how much your benefits are likely to be. However, the Job Centre can also revoke this decision; it is not bound by it.
The following reasons may lead to a provisional grant of benefits:
- fluctuating income
- changing alimony payments
- Costs of accommodation are too high and/or unreasonable
The provisional notification of approval is valid until you receive a notification of the final determination of benefits in an approval period. This decision will then determine which benefits you are finally entitled to and in what amount. This decision replaces the original provisional decision.
In principle, every person who has reached the age of 15 and has not yet reached retirement age (between 65 and 67 years, depending on the year of birth; exact table in §7a SGB II), is capable of working, is in need of assistance and has his or her usual place of residence in the Federal Republic of Germany (§7 I SGB II) can receive Bürgergeld, benefits according to SGB II. A person is considered fit for work if he or she is physically and mentally capable of working at least three hours a day. You are in need of assistance if you are unable to support yourself from your own income or assets.
Opposition
If you do not want to accept our free offer, you can also file an appeal against a decision on your own. You can do this both in writing and orally. Verbally means that your objection must be recorded in writing at the Job Centre.
However, the written form is recommended. This has the advantage for you that you can better prove your objection. Unfortunately, documents and especially verbal information are often lost at the Job Centre. To prove your objection, it is therefore best to get a receipt or send a copy by registered mail. Alternatively, you can commission us and we will take care of everything else for you.
The objection period is one month. However, it may happen that the time limit has not started. This means that you can still lodge an appeal even though one month has already passed since you received the decision. This may be the case, for example, if you did not receive a notice of appeal. We will be happy to check these and other grounds for you free of charge. To do so, use our free Check notice tool.
You will not suffer any disadvantages if you lodge an objection. It is a legally prescribed method to point out possible errors to the Job Centre. You will not suffer any disadvantages later on or incur any additional costs if the objection is handled legally correctly via the objection office (your job centre). You will also not incur any costs if you instruct our lawyers.
In principle, an appeal can be lodged against all decisions. From the first notice of approval to a notice of amendment or adjustment and a sanction notice to a notice of cancellation. An appeal can also be lodged against a rejection notice.
In principle, you can lodge an objection within one month. Once this period has expired - regardless of whether you discovered the error too late or simply missed the deadline - you can file a request for review. This gives you the opportunity to take action against a final decision. Although this decision is then in principle incontestable, you as a social benefit recipient have the opportunity to have the decision reviewed again (§ 44 SGB X).
Request for review
If you apply for a review, you have the possibility to have your decision reviewed retroactively for one year. However, the period always starts at the beginning of the year in which you submitted the application. Therefore, you can always have the entire calendar year that has already passed reviewed. For example, if you submit a request for review in May 2021, the one-year period starts on 1 January 2021. Therefore, you can have all benefit decisions issued after 1 January 2020 reviewed. In the case of recovery notices, even the notices of the last four years can be reviewed.
You do not prevent yourself from having to pay the reclaims or the ongoing offsets of social benefit claims by filing a review application. In order to stop such enforcement, you must file an application for suspension of enforcement with the competent authority.
If the Job Centre has not decided on your application for review after six months, you can file an action for failure to act with the Social Court. If you have already instructed us, we will do this for you as soon as the deadline is reached.
The Job Centre has six months after receipt of the review request to review and decide on it. The Job Centre can either review the entire decision or only the erroneous points indicated.
You must expect that the Job Centre may request further evidence from you that is decisive for the errors asserted. You should always comply with requests to submit further documents as soon as possible in order to save processing time at the Job Centre. By the way, this applies equally when we (are supposed to) act for you and we ask you for documents. Only with your support can we achieve the best result for you.
We can make for you the Request for review file an application for review. Any person affected by a decision that has been issued can also submit a request for review. The application for review will then initiate a new administrative procedure and you will receive a notice of review after the review of your final decision.
There is no prescribed form for a request for review. You can either submit a request for review in writing to your Job Centre or to the Job Centre that issued the incorrect decision, or you can inform the Job Centre orally. Be sure to state exactly which decision it is, i.e. date, type of decision, file number and give reasons why you think the decision is incorrect.
However, we cannot recommend that you file the application for review yourself, because the Job Centre does not only have to review the erroneous part you indicated, but also has the option of reviewing the entire rest of the decision. In doing so, the current law is always applied, which in the worst case can also bring disadvantages for you due to a legal renewal. If, for example, you have been awarded benefits that you are no longer entitled to according to the current legal situation, the Job Centre can cancel them again during the review. You would then have to pay back the benefits you have already received.
When we file a review request for you, we therefore check the current legal situation very carefully beforehand in order to achieve the best possible result for you.