Have client who has significant overpayment but is owed money for a seperate period outside of the overpayment period. Reg 102 states overpayment can be reduced by grabbing these arrears to offset. Anyone got a get out of jail card which would allow the credit to be paid and seperate arrangement for overpayment.

Fingers cossed hard.

Sorry- I don't think there is one. I understand that common law allows a debtor to say which debt a payment should be set against, but there is only one debt, presumably, and I think the reg would override this anyway.

Dwp guidance does state that arrears of Benefit can be used to offset an overpayment in its entirety, but the example they give would be where there is a change in the actual entitlement.

eg claimanat was paid HB at the rate of £40.00 per week for period 1 Jan 2006 to 28 Jan 2006. A re-assessment of his claim results in him actually bening entitled to £50.00 per week for the same period.

Arrears of £40.00 have now been created. This could be used in its entirety to offset the overpayment.

If the credit is due because the claim has been suspended or some time and now that it has been assessed it has resulted in a large credit this cannot be treated as arrears, and so the whole of the credit cannot be used to offset the overpayment.

The Local Authority can and should however offset the overpayment by the weekly deduction that would be appropriate eg £8.70 or £11.20 (plus possibly 50% of any earned income disregard) for the number of weeks that the credit covers.

Hope this is clear.

Your finger crossing may have worked; if it is for a different period and you have said that it is, then the "credit"/underpayment has to be paid.

Recovery from this credit is limited to the normal weekly deductions depending on how many weeks this credit covers.

Sometimes people request that we use any credit to reduce an outstanding overpayment, but, to do this we must have permission/agreement. As a decision maker I cannot decide this but if a client/customer knows that a credit is on the way, I could do this on request.