Disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and Attendance Allowance (AA) are meant to cover the extra expenses you have because of the disability.
So do you have to use this money to repay debts? To someone who isn’t disabled, your benefits may look high – but you have a lot of costs other people don’t have.
In 2022 this is a real issue for many people getting disability benefits as the cost of living rises and benefits have not kept pace with inflation. 29 per cent of disabled households are in serious financial difficulty, compared to 13 per cent of non-disabled households.
You may be in one of the following situations:
- credit card and loan payments that were manageable a year ago may now not be;
- you may be using more credit every month to just get by. So your debts may be going up and each month gets harder;
- you may have stopped paying some debts as you are behind with important bills.
I’m going to go through the main debt solutions so you can see how disability benefits are handled in each. They aren’t all the same!
I will start with bankruptcy as that is simple and looking at this makes it clear how the government thinks benefits should be treated.
Contents
Disability benefits & bankruptcy
In bankruptcy, if someone has “surplus income” each month, you have to pay that to the Official Receiver for three years, this is called an IPA. In practice, the large majority of people who go bankrupt do not have to make IPA payments.
The rules used to assess what surplus income is are published. Here is an extract from the IPA part:
35.72 State benefits only source of income
There is no requirement [for the Official Receiver] to complete the IPA calculator where the bankrupt’s sole source of income is state benefits.
So if your only income is benefits, including disability benefits, then the OR won’t even bother to think about whether you should pay an IPA – you won’t have to. The government accepts that you don’t have any spare money when your only income is benefits. Here you still have to complete the Income & Expenses section of the bankruptcy application, but it’s a formality
Where you have some other income in addition to your benefits – part-time work or an employer’s pension pehaps – your disability benefits are included as income but the Official Receiver will allow additional expenses for the extra costs of your disability. When you are completing the bankruptcy application it’s a good idea to get help from a debt adviser about this. And you should always get debt advice before deciding to go bankrupt.
Disability benefits & a Debt Relief Order (DRO)
A DRO is a very simple form of bankruptcy. If you are renting and your debts come to less than £50,000 and most or all of your income is from benefits, this may be a good option for you, see What is a DRO?
The debt adviser that is setting up your DRO will list your income and expenses
As with bankruptcy, the government thinks you need disability benefits to cover your additional expenses. Not to pay your creditors.
The debt adviser will list your disability benefits as “income”. But the Insolvency Service says:
On-going payments of PIP, DLA and AA can be offset under adult care costs.
This offset is acheived by your debt adviser adding a line added into your “expenses” that is exactly the same amount that you are getting in disability benefits, called something like “adult care costs”. Or “child care costs” if you are getting DLA for one of your children.
So the extra income you have is effectively cancelled out by the extra costs. If an IVA firm (see below) says you can afford to pay more than £75 a month to an IVA, you may still be eligible for a DRO because the DRO treatment of disability benefits is more friendly.
If all your income comes from benefits after this offsetting of the disability benefits in practice you won’t have more than £75 a month “surplus income” left. Benefits are not that generous, there is usually little or nothing left after you have paid all your bills and everyday expenses!
And you will often pass the “not more than £75 a month surplus income” test for a DRO, even if you have other income, eg from a job. Talk to a good debt adviser about this.
Disability benefits & an IVA
IVAs are more complicated. It is unusual for an IVA to be the best option for someone getting disability benefits.
You should only think of an IVA if you have a house with equity in it or a valuable car (not a mobility vehicle). If you don’t have assets to protect, look at bankruptcy or a DRO instead of an IVA:
- bankruptcy and DROs will cost a lot less and be over quicker than an IVA;
- they don’t run into the big problems that IVAs have. Over a third of IVAs fail.
- an IVA has exactly the same bad effect on your credit score as bankruptcy.
Your IVA firm will assess your income and expenses to decide what you can pay every month. Unlike bankruptcy and DROs, most IVA firms think you can use disability benefits to make monthly payments. And many IVA firms assume the standard guidelines for expenditure should apply to everyone, even though you will have much higher costs than the average family.
It may help if you think about your additional costs before your phone call and make some notes to work through. Do you (or your child) need a special diet? Additional heating and/or laundry? Additional transport costs if you can’t use public transport? Someone to clean the house or collect your shopping? Does your autistic son go swimming several times a week? Do you often go to the hairdresser as your arthritis prevents you from washing your own hair? Do you have to replace household objects more often because a disabled child breaks them? etc etc
Talking to a good debt adviser can help you get a detailed list of these expenses. IVA firms are not debt advisers – ask your local Citizens Advice for help with this.
If you have a house with equity to protect and very large debts, then it may be that an IVA is a good option. Here it may be necessary to use some of your disability benefits to make the IVA payments. But talk to Citizens Advice about this as you need to be sure that you will still be able to pay the IVA even if your mortgage payments increase in the next few years.
Disability benefits & debt management
When you could manage to clear your debts reasonably quickly if only interest is frozen, debt management is often better than an insolvency option like bankruptcy, a DRO or an IVA. There are two sorts of debt management – DMPs and payment arrangements.
A DMP (Debt Management Plan) is set up by a firm such as StepChange, then you pay the firm each month and the firm divides your money between the creditors.
The DMP firm will assess your income and expenditure. So you need to think about what all your extra disability costs are before you talk to the DMP firm. See some of the suggestions I listed above in the section about IVAs. Although DMPs are flexible so your payments can be reduced if necessary, don’t underestimate your expenses at the start. You want a budget you know you can comfortably live on for a year or more, not scrape by on for a month or two.
Payment arrangements work much like a DMP. The difference is you talk to each of your creditors to set how much you pay them each month. This includes talking through your income and expenses. Explain about your disability and the extra costs you have.
If you only have a few creditors and you are confident, setting up payment arrangements may be relatively easy. If you have a lot, or talking to them makes you anxious, it’s better to phone StepChange and talk to them about a DMP. Then StepChange does all the work for you.
Priority debts and disability benefits
Priority debts are things like rent/mortgage arrears, council tax, car finance and energy bills. There is a list of them here.
It can be harder to make a payment arrangement with a priority creditor. And this may be made worse if your expenses are high because of your disability. Talk to Citizens Advice who can help you with this.
What option is right for you?
This article has concentrated on looking at how your disability benefits are treated in different debt solutions.
But the best debt solution for you depends on your full situation, not just your disability benefits. So contact your local Citizens Advice or, if you would prefer to speak to someone on the phone, call National Debtline on 0808 808 4000.
Can’t pay your bills & debts?
Refunds from loans, cards, car finance etc
Colin Trend says
Many years ago, a number of us asked the same question when we sat down to write the Money Advice Liaison Group’s Good Practice Awareness Guidelines around debt and mental health. See: https://malg.org.uk/resources/malg-mental-health-and-debt-guidelines/#:~:text=The%20main%20result%20of%20this%20was%20the%20MALG,imposed%20on%20either%20the%20advice%20or%20creditor%20sectors.
Guideline 12 sought to address this: “It should be recognised that the issue of whether and how much certain benefits should count towards disposable income for the purposes of paying off debt are the consumer’s choice alone” was our conclusion. Further information can also be found in the above link.
The FCA states that firms should have regard to the MALG Guidelines in CONC 7.2.3G and hence whenever a DMP is produced the disability benefits should be included for transparency and then deducted as eligible expenditure as required, making a note if this exceeds the ‘trigger figure’ for the creditor’s benefit.
I have never had a FCA regulated creditor not accept an SFS produced on this basis.
Hence this should be a useful addition to the ‘Disability benefits and debt management’ section above.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I agree, it isn’t normally a problem for a debt adviser. I haven’t suggested not including the disability benefits. But I try to avoid talking about the SFS and trigger figures in articles as people reading them can’t access the details about this.
Colin Trend says
That makes sense – hopefully anyone who is unclear about how my comments will reach out and speak to a debt or money adviser as they will always want to look at some of these deeper issues to help people choose the best options.
Great summary for a general, inquisitive reader Sara.
Tori says
Hi Sara Thanks for this great article, it is really helpful.
I note you say re DROs ‘If all your income comes from benefits you will be treated as having less than £75/month surplus … ‘
I wonder where this is referenced from?
Many thanks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It follows the pattern in bankruptcy. Have you ever had a problem with this, Tori?
The offsets of disability benefits against adult care costs are specifically mentioned in the DRO A-Z eg “On-going payments of PIP, DLA and AA can be offset under adult care costs.”
Meg says
I agree it’s the case for disability benefits (offset), but I’m not sure it’s the case for ALL benefits, as it is in bankruptcy, which the (excellent and extremely useful, btw) article seems to suggest, although I may be misreading. So if someone is receiving UC and child benefit, they wouldn’t be automatically considered as having less than £75 available income (although yes in practice they would almost certainly have less than that!)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I agree that in practice debt advisers don’t have a problem with someone whose only income is from benefits having a surplus of over £75. I don’t think I did a very good job of explaining that, so I have reworded part of that section!
Meg says
Amazing, thank you Sara :) And yes, I did do a little hollow laugh at the idea they /would/ have a surplus of over £75…
Tori says
Hi
Thank you for your reply. I’ve found this referenced in Bankruptcy in the Technical Guidance for Official Receivers para 35.28, but can’t find any reference in DRO guidance like DRO: Guidance for Debt Advisers or elsewhere for DROs.
I haven’t had a problem with this, but I’m unsure how it would apply when submittIng a DRO applic. The applic would need to show under £75/month surplus for it to be approved, and if over £75/month surplus it wouldn’t be approved even if all income was benefits.
I explain to my team that if a cl only receives benefit income it is likely a DRO will be an available option, but a budget will still need to be drawn up to demonstrate they are under £75/surplus. If they are over £75/surplus, it isn’t any available option irrespective of the source of income. I was considering if I need to change this advice.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t think I did a good job of explaining this – I was trying to explain it for clients rather than their advisers. I have reworded that section.
It would be nice if the DROs were changed so there was no need to complete the I&E to show a surplus of less than £75! These days it’s usually quite a challenge to get a non deficit budget…
Tori says
Thanks Sara. Totally agree
Thomas Fox says
Interesting to compare this with the position in Scotland; you cannot grant a Trust Deed (IVA equivalent) in Scotland when your income is solely derived from benefits and whilst it is possible to propose a DPP under the DAS with only benefits income, it is very rare – therefore, the end result is that the advice provided to those individuals with benefits only income and unaffordable debts is to apply for the MAP (DRO equivalent) route into bankruptcy or if they do not qualify for MAP then it is to apply for the normal route into bankruptcy. A policy decision for the Government to make but it makes no sense to me that an individual with benefits only income will not have an IPA in bankruptcy, yet it is still possible to enter into an IVA with benefits only income.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would agree except for the case where the client has a house with equity. Unless/until the English bankruptcy rules are changed to exclude the family home (see my blog last week https://debtcamel.co.uk/personal-insolvency-change-needed/) an IVA is the only form of insolvency possible.
Those cases are not common. And may soon become extremely rare as mortgage rate increases affect the sustainability of any IVA being proposed at the moment.
Thomas Fox says
I agree with you – those cases are very uncommon, in the last 10yrs I could probably count on one hand the number of cases I’ve dealt with that fit those criteria – I would expect legislation to be created for the majority, not the very rare exceptions. There are solutions and the idea of excluding the family home from bankruptcy is something that is being discussed in Scotland also, it will be very interesting to see how it all unfolds. Unfortunately, the sustainability of every household’s current expenditure (including payment to an existing debt solution) will come under severe pressure over the next few years.
sue says
In 2019 just before the lockdown my WTC were cut down. I still work 16 hours pw, but my disability element of about £3,000 p.a. was stopped completely, which was part of my WTC. I have never had this back and i asked WTC about it but was told to speak to DWP. which i did as well as send a signed for, letter in the post this September but still no acknowledgement from DWP. My disability came from a serious road traffic accident back in 2003 and i still have difficulties from that time because of it. I now have to use all of my state pension to make ends meet.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t know why tax credits told you to ask the DWP about this – were they more specific? I think you should ask your local Citizens Advice for help with this.
Do you mind saying how large your state pension is? And how much you earn for 16 hours a week work?
sue says
It was WTC that told me to call DWP when i was renewing my tax credits this year, he said nothing more about it to me. My state pension is about £708pm I am on minimum wage and from that £160 a week i had to pay income tax of £30 pw. Also before my pension i was paid about £350pm WTC which included my disability element. so now all i get in WTC is £132pm and no disability.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
are you aslo getting housing benefit to help with the rent? And council tax support?
sue says
Hi Sara, I don’t get housing benefit as I still have a mortgage, even at 68 years old. Its £350pm and no council tax support, but I do have25% discount has I live alone I pay £102 for my council pm.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think you definitely should get an appointment with your local Citizens Advice. for two reasons:
1) to try to work out why the disability element of WTC stopped and try to get back the thousands you have lost if it should have continued
2) to how your finances would change if you stopped work. If you did your state pension would be topped up so that you get £182.60 a wek – that’s £790 a month.
Thats is less than you currently get from your state Pension plus work. BUT Pension Credit is a gateway benefit to a lot of other help:
– you wouldn’t have to pay council tax
– you would get some help with your mortgage through Support For Mortgage Interest (this will rise as mortgage rates increase)
– you would get free dental treatment etc
– you would get £150 a year Warm Home Discount
– you can get cheap broadband from BT
All these bits can add up to a lot!
Also we don’t know yet what the government will do to help people with energy bills after April next year. It may well be that people getting pension credit get more generous help that people only getting the state pension.
sue says
Hi Sara, thank you so much for your advice I will start with an appointment then, with C.A.B and I will definitely let you know how I get on.
James says
Great article Sara. I’m just wondering if you have the reference for your stat from: “29 per cent of disabled households are in serious financial difficulty, compared to 13 per cent of non-disabled households.”? No worries if not.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It came from this recent report https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/geography/pfrc/documents/Facing%20barriers.pdf
Frank says
Hi Sara my partner is about to apply for a debt relief order . we live in a rented property and I pay all the bills and running costs of the home . My partner’s only income is pip that is made up of £92.40 daily living amount per week and £24.45 mobility amount per week she doesn’t have any other income or benefits will she be eligible for a DRO
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That depends on what her expenses are – she should reasonably be contributing to the bills in the house, in which case it’s highly likshe will have less than £75 a month disposable income.
How large are her debts and how much is she paying a month to them at the moment?
Frank says
Hi Sara the debts are around £7000 with 3 creditors she hasn’t paid any of them since July 2020 after she had a nervous breakdown . She is now under the care of a psychiatrist getting treatment for a severe impaired mental disorder she is going to start to give me £100 per month towards the bills . Do you think she should offer a £1 token payment for each debt while she is waiting for an appointment at the CAB to process the DOR ? and Will she have to give expenditure details to the OR or will they proceed with the DOR based on that she only has the pip payment as her only income
Sara (Debt Camel) says
When she is paying nothing or £1 to each of the debts and 3100 a month to you, how much will her other expenses be? This has to cover her food, clothes, toiletries, etc. Also any costs of her disabiliies – does she need mini cabs to appointments, higher heating costs, extra laundry etc?
She may well have no spare income or be under £75 but that is what the CAB adviser will look at. It may be that she should be paying more than £100 a month to her share of the bills.
Is she already talking to CAB?
Frank says
Hi Sara
Thanks for the reply . She does need to minicams She isn’t talking to the CAB at the moment she is waiting for an appointment .she does pay for things like clothes , chiropodist ( for medical reasons) hair dresser looking after her cat Amazon prime toiletries mobile phone and gym membership ( she needs to go the gym for exercise and mental well being) can all this be included ? Also she puts away £10 a month for the grandchildren for Christmas , birthdays can this also be included ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes all that can be included if they are reasonable costs for anyone or needed in addition for her disabilities. In particular things like the gym and chiropodist ore clearly the sort of extra expenses disability benefits are meant to cover.
£10 a month for presents sound very reasonable to me.
Offering the debts £1 a month while she gets advice from CAB sounds sensible. She should make the same offer to all the debts.
Frank says
Thank you for your advice Sara
Nicola Smith says
Hello. The info and links seem to be focused on DROs, but I’m trying to arrange a debt management plan and the creditor wants more than I can afford and has his eye on my PIP. I went through Stepchange, so included my PIP and then offset it under adult care, as advised. I have a hearing coming up soon to argue against why the creditor can’t have the amount he wants, and was hoping for links to some legislation that confirms they can’t take my PIP into account – assuming this is available? Thank you.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I have a hearing coming up soon
What sort of hearing?
Mamapod says
I’m just over 6 months into bankruptcy and my daughter has been awarded DLA. I’m pretty sure the OR can’t regard this money as income. I am very concerned about the disabled child element and caters element of UC which equates to around £600 a month (6 months would be backdated as a lump sum). I can only find reliable information regarding DROs, where it says the additional UC elements would be disregarded. I’m terrified of them cancelling the bankruptcy due to a 3000 lump sum.
Could you clarify this for me please Sara?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Bankruptcy can never be cancelled – it isn’t like a DRO. The “absolute worst case” is that some of your lump sum may have to be paid to the OR.
DLA wont be treated as “extra income” – because you are allowed an offsetting amount for “child disability costs”.
Anyway, if your only income comes from benefits, then an IPA/IPO will not be set.
The DRO rules normally follow what happens in bankruptcy – tell your OR’s office now about this benefits award and the likely lump sum amounts.
Let me know what happens!
Sarah says
Hi is anyone on a iva and if successful I would get a back payment from pip , will they take the back payment from me and my pip payments going forward this would help me so much with things the back payment , that I need for my disability my washing machine has broke etc
many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Can I ask about your IVA – how long has it been running? Do you have income apart from benefits? do you have any assets to protect?
Sarah says
4 years now (9 month payment break for maternity ) work 24 hours a week and my house to protect
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Do you have a mortgage fix ending soon?
Who is your IVA firm?
Sarah says
Just renewed that 6 months ago and stepchange all I wanted to know is will they take pip if rewarded for my disability and back payment if awarded one
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The simple answer is that I don’t know, you will have to ask StepChange. They normally behave pretty fairly. But the reason I was asking about mortgage is because if it has recently increased, you could be be arguing that you need the extra money to cover that and bills going up – which more may do in April as well.
Sarah says
Ahhh ok no problem I don’t want to ask them till I know it’s accepted thank you so much anyway and yes definitely everything is going up
Thank you for your reply’s
Have a nice day
Deppi says
Your backpay and ongoing payments can be claimed. As Sara said, you should offset them to needs, since you get a PIP for your extra costs.
Please read:
“Any state benefits, including those relating to income (universal credit, child benefit and pensions, etc) and also ill-health, disability or caring responsibilities should be included as income. The insolvency practitioner should ensure that any caring related costs are also included as an expense within the relevant section of the SFS.”
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/individual-voluntary-arrangement-iva-protocol/iva-protocol-2021
Sarah says
Ok thanks for reply , no point me going through all that proving my disability and my pain if I can’t even keep it needed it to help me . It is a definite need why I claimed and understand I ow money that’s why I have to remortgage my home soon to pay what I ow. Just a shame I can’t get the help. Thanks anyway for your input
Sara (Debt Camel) says
no – StepChange may well be reasonable. You shouldn’t assume not. And anyway your costs are going up… continue with your PIP application and appeal any refusal – your local Citizens Advice can help with this, a very large number of PIP applications are won on appeal.
Deppi says
That is correct, get the money and spend it. Create a new budget, based on the fact you have been given PiP to cover your needs, i.e. eat more if you were restrained due to budget, clothe more, tuen the heating up to warm the house, fit the max on the expenditure and use money for your needs such as using taxis, pay carers etc . Dont stop your application.
Chloe says
Hi there,
I have declared bankruptcy in early May whilst off work on sick due to being diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
I am due to make a phased return to work and I have also been advised that I have been awarded PIP.
Obviously when I declared bankruptcy I didn’t put the PIP income in my income and expenditure as I didn’t have it yet. I am wanting to use the PIP payment to help pay for some oxygen therapy to help me hopefully go back to work full time etc. I wondered if this will be allowed to be the case or will the insolvency service take the PIP payment from me.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
did you discuss this with a debt adviser before going bankrupt?
what other benefits are you getting at the moment? how slow is the expected phased return to work likely to be?
I assume the oxygen therapy is not available on the NHS? how much does it cost and is it likely to be just a few sessions or ongoing payments for a considerable period?
what other payments associated with your health problems do you expect to persist?
Chloe says
I didn’t discuss this with a debt advisor no. I went bankrupt off my own back with the support of my parents. I didn’t even know if I’d be successful in my PIP claim at the point in which I went bankrupt.
I am just getting my OSP from work which is around £1,500 which I have completely budgeted out in my budget list when I went bankrupt. Even though I live at home I have high living costs as I am celiac as well as running an automatic car on lease. I haven’t had my call yet with the income payments team yet.
My phased return is due to be over a couple of months. Oxeygen therapy isn’t on the NHS no, it’s around £500 for ten sessions. They recommend around 3-4 sessions a week to start with. I will need to have ongoing treatment for a number of years for this to be beneficial. I feel it will give me a fighting chance at being able to live a somewhat ‘normal’ life and get back to work full time and not have to leave work due to ill health to go onto benefits.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
is an automatic car essential for you because of your health? what is the monthly cost?
Chloe says
Hi Sara,
Yes the car is essential to allow me to get to appointments and is £210 a month + Maintainence + insurance as well as a lot of petrol. Apologies for not getting back to you- I didn’t get a notification of your reply. I have been awarded higher rate on both components so would be enough to cover the oxeygen therapy I so desperately need. Plus additional petrol for returning to work as I am no longer able to use public transport. I am going to ring the income payments team today to notify them of this- I have also got a lump sum of back pay too. Do you have any other advice? I still haven’t had any communication yet from the Income payments team yet.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, I hope this goes smoothly, it may well do. If you feel the OR’s office isn’t being reasonable, talk to your local Citizens Advice. They can get advice from the national Specialist Debt Advice Service if necessary.
Chloe says
Thank you. Yes I will do. Thats what I thought about doing if I wasn’t getting a good answer from the OR.
Shelley says
Every situation is different, but we were able to keep all of my daughters DLA, plus my carers, and 6 months backpay. Yhey asked what my side of the money would be used for, but they disregard acrual DLA/PIP. Good luck
Taylor says
Hi there, I am currently considering either a DRO or banckruptcy. My only income is Universal credit, Child Benefit and Disability Living Allowance for 2 of my children. I do receive the carers element and severe disability premium as part of my Universal Credit claim. I have been advised only the actual DLA payment can be automatically offset as part of a DRO but the disability premium is not. Is this correct? Many thanks for your help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Who told you this? Have they said you will have more than £75 spare income so you will not meet the DRO requirements?
Taylor says
I have 2 severly disabled children and get just over £900 a month in disability premium for them added to my Universal Credit. After considering reasonable costs I still appear to have around £200 spare at the end of each month. This is due to the disability premium which I have been informed the National Debt Helpline is not automatically offset and I need to show where this money goes each month. I often pay family and friends to look after my boys as respite for a few days but have been told this may not class as reasonable costs.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
well iot sounds reasonable to me – that is what disability money and premiums are for, for you to spend to get the best for your family and that includes taking care of yourself.
Are National Debtline (I presume that is who you have talked to) saying they won’t put forward a DRO for you? You would be fine with bankruptcy but have to save up £680 for the bankruptcy fee…
Lisa says
Hi Sara,
I have a question relating to PIP.
I put in an affordability claim against Argos, it went to the FOS. I provided all my bank statements. The FOS say that it wasn’t offered irresponsibly as I could afford it, but they are taking my PIP into account as part of my income and therefore the reason why I could afford it. They said I had more than enough deposable income. Does it count as income? Or at least income to pay debt? I didn’t have it when I first took the credit, but got it before they did the last two increases. Surely it was awarded for the things I have to pay for for my disability. And how would argos know I had it before increasing my credit? I wrote back my issue with this and the FOS advisor said that yes it is included as income as I could use it as income to get further credit and it wouldn’t be fair to say it couldn’t work the other way.
I hope this makes sense, but do you have any further insights that I could use to disagree with this?
Many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is income but you must also have higher than usual expenses because of this?
If Argos were just working your expenses out by using standard numbers, they would not have been accurate, so they should have verified your actual expenses
Phil Walker says
A great thread but maybe not concentrating on PIP classed an income . I use near as dammit on expenses that are vital to my recovery. Can a creditor count the PIP as income ? If the creditors win as it were they would definitely take most of my PIP rendering me housebound. I’ve tried all other avenues ironically I’m dealing with CAB EDF . The way the adviser talks they really appear to be working for EDF
Sara (Debt Camel) says
so this is an energy debt? how large? what payment to arrears is being suggested?
do you have other debts as well?
is your only source of income benefits?