Hi John. Welcome to the forum and sorry for the delayed response.

It is slightly more complicated than that. There are a couple of ways that your Trustee can approach how they calculate your contributions to your trust deed.

The first is by looking at the income and expenditure for your entire household (including benefits such as PIP) to see what is left over and then requesting you pay your share of that in each month. This would usually be worked out "pro-rata", ie if you are contributing 80% of the household income then 80% of the amount that is spare is allocated as yours and would have to be paid in to the Trust Deed.

Alternatively, if your partner didn't want to share the details of their income then they don't have to and your Trustee would work out what you can afford based just on your own income and a reasonable contribution (usually 50%) towards your joint bills/expenses.

So, to answer your question specifically, your Trustee should be including your partner's PIP income in the calculation, but only if your partner is happy to divulge that information.

The other thing that is relevant here is that your Trustee cannot ask you to pay benefits in to the Trust Deed. So the amount that you are being asked to pay must not amount to more than the non-benefit income you are earning each month. They should take benefits into account but only in so far as to calculate what you can afford to pay from your non-benefit income. If you are unemployed then you should let your Trustee know and they should stop seeking payment from you until you are back earning again.