The DLA generally needs to be added to the household income as income/expenditures will take account of all household income and all household expenditure, even if the income for your son equals the expenditure.

Mark

Trustees shouldn't seek contributions from social security benefits, though they can be taken into account when a trustee is assessing a person's affordability.

However, if the DLA is in the child's name then I don't see how a trustee can justifiably take it into consideration.

So it should be added in so they can see it but then not take any extra contribution from it. Like say now it shows my husbands extra income is £200 a month but when we add in DLA and take off expenditure that adds an extra £100 making it £300 - they can or can't take the £300 as part of it is made up of our sons dla? The thing with dla is it's so unpredictable, like he could need new equipment in the future that we don't know about yet so can't really ad in to the expenditure now but what happens if we add it and they take the extra money and 6mths down the line he needs something that costs £500 (which has and does happen) and we don't have it as the trust deed is taking the extra money.

They did take my son's DLA, when I questioned it, the trustee had no experience of it before. But they still took it!

Hello trustdeed1.

DLA is paid specifically to cover the additional costs associated with a condition.

Therefore you should be able to demonstrate expenditure equivalent to the level of income being received.

I wouldn't be shy about doing that. This should negate the effect of the extra income.

Having said that, if an arrangement has already been agreed with a different set of figures it might be more difficult to change subsequently without there being other consequences.

So I should just put in the figures and then minus off the extra £100 a month for the likeliehood of extras we will need during the year?

I would suggest setting out what those extras are likely to be trustdeed1 and then break it down into a monthly figure that will cover it.

Ok I see how that makes sense, thanks.