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Claimant's mother recently died with will stating that claimant's share of estate should be held in trust and that she would be entitled to liferent interest in fund (trust was felt to be most appropriate method of dealing with claimant's share of estate due to her learning difficulties and mental health problems). As a result claimant received monthly payments from trustees which were treated as income for HB purposes and led to removal of entitlement. When trustees became aware of the detrimental effect that the liferent interest payments were having on claimant's HB & CTB entitlements they stopped the payments. Since stopping the payments the trustees have held the interest generated in a separate account (in one of the trustees names).
The decision was taken to continue to treat the liferent interest payments as notional income. My own feeling is that the decision in terms of notional income is probably right given that, under the terms of the will, the claimant has a right to receive the liferent interest.
Would be interested in hearing other opinions or perspectives though.
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