Won appeal - but owe money, can they take it

allybongo221,
Do you know what the money is that your partner owes to the DWP? For example, is it a social fund loan, or an overpayment?

The broad answer for overpayment recovery (other than tax credits) is that the DWP usually want to take it from arrears of benefit exactly as you fear.

In order to prevent this from happening or at least ensure your partner gets some of the arrears you'd have to look at the big picture. Are you trying to get the overpayment completely written off, or does your partner agree that she has to pay it back but wants to do that more slowly?

If she has been put in hardship by waiting all this time for her PIP, does that means that she owes friends or family money? If so, explain this & give as much proof as you can. Explain why she needs the arrears (or at least some of them) to avoid hardship. If her disability is relevant to this, then say so. For example, she has had the extra costs of disability all this time, so it is arguably unjust to use arrears of her PIP to pay a DWP debt when everyday living costs are not the purpose of PIP. The whole point is that a PIP award recognises she has problems with the activities of daily living/mobility which could incur extra costs (although she can spend her ongoing PIP on whatever she wishes to spend it on). 

I can't immediately see a disability discrimination argument here but it really does depend what the overpayment was as well, so it may be worth mentioning the purpose of PIP when you make your case.

It is possible for the DWP to completely write off overpayments on the grounds of hardship, but it is very unusual. As it was 10 years ago it would be out of time to challenge the decision on the recoverability of the overpayment, I'm afraid. So it is all at the DWP's discretion.

Will