Ipa

sovilla

So I got a letter yesterday regarding and IPA. They say I am to pay £85 a month. Not sure how they got to this amount as my left over income was about £30 so they must have disallowed something. Anyways I will try and scrape the money together to pay for it thats not a problem, the problem is in May my partner who is currently claiming £71 JSA goes from contribution based to income based and because I earn alot he wont get any money. So were going to lose £71 a week and also have to find another £85 a month for the IPA. I spoke to the case worker who said I need to put it all in writing and provide evidence.

Where I do I get the evidence from, I thought it was just common knowledge that after controbution based it goes to income based and if your partner earns alot of money then you dont get any. We have a letter saying how long he would get JSA for but not what happens when it stops.

Do you think the job centre will do a letter for us. Or shall I just provide what we have. Really worried at the moment on how we are going to manage.

mysterio_2

the whole idea of an IPA is it's an arrangement from both sides..NOT just the OR

get whatever supporting information you can then contact the receivers office dealing with your case ask for a breakdown in how they reach the figures they request and take it from there

PippaGirl_2

I wouldn't agree to it. I would stress your needs and amounts, if you need a set amount you need a set amount.

You can provide print outs of websites stating contribution based JSA lasts x amount of time I would think.

debt_doctor

Hi,

I would say no to the IPA (but stretch the time limits) as I also would say I want my original £30 in my pocket and not yours.
By the time they have thought about things it will be May - you will have lost the JSA element to the family, you will have to take up that slack from your income, and thus an IPA will be impossible.
Job done.

DD

mattannar

The OR may not have taken the JSA into account because the OP earns a lot.
If the OP's partner has only £300 income(jsa) non of this may have been taken into consideration, and hanging it out may not make any difference.
Surely the IPA is based on the OP's income, so without seeing an SOA it is hard to see where the OP could contest.

sovilla

If they had not of taken my partners JSA into account then we would have been short by £307 a month which is what i put down (71 x52/12)
Also my contract has only been renewed for 1 month so at the end of April I may be going back down to 20 hours a week on a band 4 when im full time at a band 5 at the moment. Then we will be in dire straits and need to make some major changes to our outgoings. Possibly living on rice and beans for the forseable.

I will ask them for a breakdown and see what they have disallowed.

Thanks guys for your input.

kepar

Not knowing how much you earn in comparison with your partner is hard to be correct, but the OR will only take a maximum of 50% of your partner's income into consideration.
In my case my income was less than 20% of the total household income and wasn't taken into consideration.

sovilla

My take home pay is:

My Pay: £1364.20
Benefits: £1147.90
Partners JSA: £307.66

I cant quite remember what figures I put down so am waiting for them to send me the info back on what they allowed. I could probably write them all down again now as they are what we pay out every month.

We have 5 kids and 2 cars on finance which the OR said we could keep so I put down all the costs relating to keeping the cars. If I do go back down to 20 hours then we will have to get rid of one of the cars which will then make it hard for either me to do my job (i work for the NHS in the community) or for my partner to take our 5 kids to school in the next town. But thats something will we have to sort if and when it happens.

Oh sorry I forgot to add that I get around £240 a month expenses for milage but this does vary depending on what milage I do, I just put an approx figure down. But then my travel costs get lower when I dont do as many miles. This is also changing as at the moment I get a standard £63 then 44p per mile, however the new travel policy states we dont get the fixed fee and only 40p per mile for the first 3500 miles and then 20p after that so were going to be even more out of pocket.

debt_doctor

Hi Kepar,

The 50 % maximum of partners income for consideration is not correct - although I understand where you get that from.
The IS will use the amount of partners income presented unless the partner is not cooperative / no partner info is given.
In that scenario, the IS will ASSUME that the none BR partner contributes 50% to household income, whether they do or not.

DD

kepar

debt_doctor wrote: »

Hi Kepar,

The 50 % maximum of partners income for consideration is not correct - although I understand where you get that from.
The IS will use the amount of partners income presented unless the partner is not cooperative / no partner info is given.
In that scenario, the IS will ASSUME that the none BR partner contributes 50% to household income, whether they do or not.

DD

Thanks you explain it better than me.

What I was trying to covey to the OP was that the OR would not take all of the partners income into consideration only a proportion of it.

luvchocolate

expenses are not income they are expenses and as such should not be included thats what the O.R told me