A recipient of an overpayment is without fault if he or she performed no act of commission or omission that resulted in the overpayment. The fact that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) or another agency may have been at fault in initiating an overpayment will not necessarily relieve the individual from liability.

(a) Considerations. Pertinent considerations in finding fault are—

(1) Whether payment resulted from the individual's incorrect but not necessarily fraudulent statement, which he or she should have known to be incorrect;

(2) Whether payment resulted from the individual's failure to disclose material facts in his or her possession, which he or she should have known to be material; or

(3) Whether he or she accepted a payment that he or she knew or should have known to be erroneous.

(b) Mitigation factors. The individual's age, physical and mental condition or the nature of the information supplied to him or her by OPM or a Federal agency may mitigate against finding fault if one or more of these factors contributed to his or her submission of an incorrect statement, a statement that did not disclose material facts in his or her possession, or his or her acceptance of an erroneous overpayment.