Adult son with UC and PIP living in family home - contribution to family "budget" yes or no?

larkim

My adult son (21yo) has recently finished specialist college and is now on a programme of daily activities funded by local social services.  Now he is not in FT education he has successfully applied for UC with my wife acting as appointee.  He is also in receipt of PIP with the same appointee relationship.

When I was in his position as a 21yo claiming unemployment benefits at first and then earning a salary whilst I lived at home with my parents, I made a contribution to the family budget of something like £25 a week to my parents.  We both agreed that this was sensible, it meant I had some "real world" money leaving my account as a bit of a "life lesson" and it also made sense that I was now an adult out of education and shouldn't completely free-load off my parents, especially as I now had a small source of income coming in.

Is the same sort arrangement "allowable" for a young adult with a disability?  We do have an LPA in place so our ability to help him with managing his financial affairs is clearer and easier than it might be otherwise, but I'm conscious of the "conflict of interest" in that my wife as appointee would be paying herself some cash out of his benefits into the family day to day budget as it were.

We've totted up the various bills and typical food shopping across the house and could simply divide them between the 5 of us living here (two adult parents, two children and one adult disabled child) so that we have some logical basis for any notional "charges" we make, and I think we would also expect that he could also start to have more say in the grocery shopping for example.

In the next couple of years we hope that he will be able to move out into some form of supported or independent living arrangement, so we also don't want him to simply get all of his benefits and assume that this is just free spending money that will continue for ever more.  And of course building it up as savings will probably just result in it being used to contribute to some means tested care costs in his future, which whilst I agree is "right" is something that many advisors try to help families avoid doing by using the benefits.

Is this something other families do?  I should say that as a family ourselves we are a) 100% happy to have him live with us whether he gets any money or not - he is our son after all! and b) we don't need the money.  So we could actually choose to use any money he does pay as a household contribution to accumulate to a fund to support him later in life (at our discretion).

Tucosalamanca

larkim said:

 choose to use any money he does pay as a household contribution to accumulate to a fund to support him later in life (at our discretion).

This is exactly what I would do. No different than taking rent from your child and putting aside as a mortgage deposit for them

KxMx

When I lived at home on less benefits than your son (just ESA which was less than UC and no PIP) I absolutely paid a sum to my mother every month towards bills.

As far as I was concerned just because I was disabled, I didn't need to be treated any differently than another adult non- disabled child living in the same household circumstances. 

larkim

If he had no learning disability etc then it would be a no-brainer; it's the conflict due to the fact that we would be making the decision about how much for him.  I like to be above board, and I strongly suspect that for many families this sort of stuff isn't even thought about - the money comes into the joint household account and gets spent or saved without wondering too much about whose money it actually is.

I could discuss with his social worker to be utterly explicit about it, but I do fear that that would set hares running as they would over-think it and try to come up with some calculations themselves which might be unnecessarily restrictive.

As a reasonably comfortable family we do struggle to find ways to "spend" the benefits that my son gets.  e.g. venues offer cheap access, free travel, free carer places, social services provide his daily activities including all travelling.  When he was an infant we got DLA etc despite the fact that the things that he was assessed as needing would have applied to just about any pre-school child and we had no / very few additional costs compared to those we would incur with a non-disabled child.

Of course, things will be very different if / when he does leave home and when my wife and I pass away eventually.

poppy12345

I live with my adult daughter who's a little older than your son. She claims UC, with LCWRA element and full PIP. It's just the 2 of us at home, she has ASD and a learning disability. I'm also her appointee for both benefits.

As she's now an adult in her own right it's only right that she pays her contributions towards everything. I spoke to her (though she wasn't really interested) and said i think we should split all the bills in half. Bills such as energy, water, Council tax, Broadband, shopping and shortfall of rent etc etc. Even though she wasn't interested she did agree to this. When i receive her UC and PIP into my bank, i deduct the money for her share and give her what's left. All she's really interested in is she gets some money each month to do what she wants with. I can tell you it's more than £25 you mentioned above.

She also has a mobile, ipad and a few subscriptions that she pays for herself.

I don't think you need to speak to any Social Worker, as his appointee for his benefits, it's your responsibility to act in their best interests, which should include paying their way in life, despite living at home. Hope this helps.

larkim

Thanks Poppy, that all makes sense to me.  And yes, the £25 I quoted was what I did "back in the day" so about 30 years ago.  I would expect more to be paid these days, just need to come up with a sensible figure!

poppy12345

Remember you need to consider that what ever he pays towards the bills will be considerabely less than what he would pay if he lived else where. You should feel bad about reducing his money to help with all the bills, it's part of "growing up."

born_again

You could take a part of it on the basis of covering bills, but put that money aside for him. So when/if he gets supported or independent living arrangement. To be used for the extra things needed if he is not saving anything.

Personally it is very much down to you. While my daughter is abled bodied. She has not been paying rent (although would buy shopping when with us) as she was in temp employment. My agreement with her. Now she is actually employed by a company she is paying rent £35 a week & still buying shopping. The bonus of doing this has meant she has built up a very healthy amount of savings to go towards a deposit for when she buys a home.
But that was my choice & would not disagree with the above options.

poppy12345

Savings are good but for someone claiming means tested benefits then the savings rules apply. For UC then savings of up to £6,000 are ignored. For every £250 or part there of over this amount there's a £4.35/month deduction. For savings of more than £16,000 then entitlement to means tested benefits stops. PIP isn't affected.

Albermarle

Now she is actually employed by a company she is paying rent £35 a week & still buying shopping. 

I feel a bit bad now, as our able bodied daughter has just moved back in ( she has a reasonable job) and we are charging her £80 a week + a medium sized shop every couple of weeks. On the other hand, our council tax has gone up and we have to keep an extra part of the house heated as she works from home.

On the original subject we have a disabled son who gets benefits. We take the view that the benefits are given mainly to cover living costs, so no problem morally  to use them exactly for that purpose.

KxMx

larkim said:

If he had no learning disability etc then it would be a no-brainer; it's the conflict due to the fact that we would be making the decision about how much for him.  I like to be above board, and I strongly suspect that for many families this sort of stuff isn't even thought about - the money comes into the joint household account and gets spent or saved without wondering too much about whose money it actually is.

I could discuss with his social worker to be utterly explicit about it, but I do fear that that would set hares running as they would over-think it and try to come up with some calculations themselves which might be unnecessarily restrictive.

As a reasonably comfortable family we do struggle to find ways to "spend" the benefits that my son gets.  e.g. venues offer cheap access, free travel, free carer places, social services provide his daily activities including all travelling.  When he was an infant we got DLA etc despite the fact that the things that he was assessed as needing would have applied to just about any pre-school child and we had no / very few additional costs compared to those we would incur with a non-disabled child.

Of course, things will be very different if / when he does leave home and when my wife and I pass away eventually.

Generally it's down to the head of household to decide how much money to charge adult children. 
In that respect, your son is no different from many others and his disability doesn't come into the equation.