Hello Baller1.

The DLA received, along with all of your other income, should be taken into account when calculating your household income.

Of course DLA is paid to help cover the extra costs associated with a particular condition, so those expenses should be listed also in the calculation of your income and expenditure.

Did you list these costs when you set up the trust deed?

If you did not then you could ask the trustee to add them. However this may or may not be considered to be acceptable by your trustee and creditors if they originally took your case forward on the basis that you did not need money to cover the costs associated with the condition for which the DLA is paid.

The pay increases are, in some ways, a separate issue. You should notify your trustee of them in order that they can be factored into your payment. Failing to do so could lead to arrears building up and extensions to a trust deed.

When discussing all of this with your trustee the increase in income may give them a little more scope to work with you in terms of the things you'd like for your child. I hope that they're sympathetic.

Thanks TDA.

The only way we could really get the Trust Deed to work was to include it. We did mention to our trustee there are extra costs associated with the disability but we were going to try and cover things as much as we could through squeezing our other budgets. So in short no we didnt list them which is stupid I know. Were not asking to purchase anything spectacular it's basic things we are after and there is also the repair of equipment and alterations in the house that we didn't think about when we signed it. I was hoping seeing as the DLA is in my childs name but the money is paid in to our account that it wouldnt come under the household income.

I have already told my account manager about the pay rises at the end of this month and should hopefully get a new statement of affairs to in the next few days to return.

Thanks again

Hi Baller1

Hopefully the Trustee will allow additional expenses, even if these were excluded at the start. As long as they are reasonable, I don't see there being a problem.

Mark

If the DLA is in the child's name then it shouldn't really have been included at the start anyway, Baller1. I think your trustee would be on very shaky ground if they tried to insist that those funds should be used to pay towards your debts rather than your child's care needs.

Thanks very much for the reply. I will give my account manager a quick call. Fingers crossed!