An Employer's Guide to Direct Earnings Attachments (DEA) for the Collection of Housing Benefit Overpayments

8.1  Courts can make orders that mean you must take money directly from your employee's earnings in a similar way to how we ask you to make deductions for a Direct Earnings Attachments (DEA).

For example, your employee may have an Attachment of Earnings Order (England and Wales) or a Deduction from Earnings Order (for Child Maintenance). The DEA can be imposed without a court order, but if your employee has any other deduction orders against them there are rules that tell you which money you should take first.

If your employee has one or more of the following in place, they will take priority over a DEA:

8.2   England an Wales

• Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO) from the Child Maintenance Group (CMG)
• Attachment of Earnings Order (AEO) for maintenance or fines
• Council Tax Attachment of Earnings Order (CTAEO)

8.3  Scotland

• Deduction of Earnings Order (DEO) from CMG
• Earnings Arrestment (EA)

8.4  Student Loans

A student loan repayment also takes priority over a DEA. This applies to both England and Wales and Scotland.

Once these priority orders have been taken into account in your calculation a DEA will then take priority in relation to other orders or notices in date order (in Scotland this will be the date they were received). You must make deductions under any later notice as if the earnings for which it relates are the residue of your employee's earnings after the making of any deduction to comply with any earlier notice (see examples 2 and 3, section 14). The amount you can deduct will be subject to the available net earnings above the protected earnings limit of 60% of net earnings.