My client is 63 years of age.He had a head injury some years ago which resulted in a large amount of personal injury compensation, which is held by the Court Of Protection and therefore ignored as capital. His partner has recently been made Deputy and has been given a Single Guarantee bond by the Cof P which entitles her to draw on a 'pot' of £200,000 without needing any sort of permission and without any conditions over what the money can be used for. I have not come across one of these Bonds before and it seems to me that any money withdrawn should not be counted as either income or capital as it would be wholly derived from the C of P money and Sch4 para 13&14 SPC regs should apply.

Am I right in this assumption? If I am then the client can claim a good deal of PC plus full Council TaxBenefit etc.

thanks

I agree that it should be ignored, but I think that the relevant reg is para

16 (2) of Schedule V:


'(1) An amount equal to the amount of any payment made in consequence of any personal injury to the claimant or, if the claimant has a partner, to the partner.

(2) Where the whole or part of the payment is administered–

(a) by the High Court or the County Court under Rule 21.11(1) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, or the Court of Protection, or on behalf of a person where the payment can only be disposed of by order or direction of any such court;

the whole of the amount so administered.'

I don't think that once you have a disregarded sum of capita (200k cannot by any stretch of the imagination be income!) the manner in which it is administered can convert it back into income.

I don't know the facts of your client's case, but I'm not sure it's likely to be caught by either of the exclusions you refer to which to address regular compensation payments which were never capital and so must be regarded as income.

Thanks for that, you are of course quite right,para 13 refers to payments ordered by a court,not administered by one.

pete.