Rajab Al Zarahni

5 minutes ago, steve187 said:

people over 60 do pay NI on earnings.

You stop paying at State Pension age.

2 hours ago, Farangdanny said:

Forty years ago, I had a pension mortgage with Scottish Windows. Only kept it for two years. I have contacted them and they claim no record ! What to do ?

Ask your bank if they can retrieve any statements or documents relevant to this period, even an old direct debit mandate would help. These would prove the fact of any payments and might also reveal your account number or plan membership number. If you can obtain this further information then make a further approach to Scottish Widows. Meanwhile, do a thorough search of the house for any document or piece of paper that would evidence the fact of payments. 

8 hours ago, denby45 said:

Sorry to correct again, I only know what happened in my case. The part of NI contributions you talk about went straight into a personal pension scheme which I took out with AMP.  That was in 1978 as I stated earlier. I was never part of any occupational pension scheme. I still have that original PPP along with 2 others I took out later with Pearl and L&G. The three of them added together will just about get me enough for a good night out. No, I am joking of course but not one of them has performed over the years and certainly will not provide enough to live on. It is a good job I saved and invested in other areas. The smaller 2 of the 3 pensions I am busy cashing out now because they are hardly worth the bother. The original AMP one is a slightly different story because I have a guaranteed annuity sum which is very high compared to today's pittances. Although it will not be anywhere near what I need to live, it will help supplement my State pension and other investments (bonds, dividends, interest and rental income).

 

Den

I suspect that many pension providers cursed the day they started to include guarantee annuity rates in pensions contracts. When I was looking to buy an annuity with my private pension fund the offers I received were less than half what the guaranteed annuity option would pay out. Even quotes for an impaired annuity would't get near the GA Rate. These days you only see them in very old contracts and those that have already matured.

1 hour ago, nontabury said:

I have recently returned to live in the U.K. after living in THAILAND for 20 yrs. My state pension was upgraded from day one from £99 to I think £125 a week. come April it will be £135 per week. This is the sort of increase, that discourages successive governments from paying the correct rate to 500,000 British pensioners, who happen to reside in certain countries. It will now be interesting to see if those pensioners, who now live in the E.U. will also have their pensions frozen.

 Regarding pensioners who Return to live in THAILAND, it's my understanding, that should they return within two years, their pension will revert to their previous frozen pension rate. If they return after two years, their pension will be frozen, at the rate, applicable on the date of their return.      

Do you have a link that would evidence the 2 year rule ?

29 minutes ago, vogie said:

How long would someone with a frozen pension have to live in the UK or a country like the Philipines for the pension to be permantely upgraded?

My understanding is that it would be paid at the unfrozen rate from the date of your arrival.

2 minutes ago, Jim P said:

Of course I will be accruing another year at the end of this tax year which isnt yet included hence the 4 years missing I am quoting, not 5 as shown.

Why not simply become self employed for four years as for example, a cabinet maker, window cleaner or book binder then make sure you charge so much that you get no work. In the period of your "self employment" pay Class 2 self employed NI contributions.

43 minutes ago, steve187 said:

that's not a frozen full pension , must be a frozen part pension, as most women of that age paid a reduced NI contribution which only gave them a small part pension, someone in 1984 retiring on a full pension would have received somewhere in the region of £35 per week,  still not good but £6 would be a bad example, and not the norm

On checking the details I agree, you are right. A full single, basic state pension in April 1984 would have been £35.80. A full basic state pension in April 1971 would have been £6. A good basis for comparison would be to take the most recent statistic for average UK male further life expectancy at 65, this being 18.5 years then compare the difference between the single full state pension in April 2018 with the same pension payment 18 years ago. 

April 2018: £ 125.95

April 2000: £ 67.50

The loss would be about 47%

16 minutes ago, i claudius said:

Didnt it say that the maximum is 7% per payment?

Sent from my [device_name] using http://Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

I re-read the document and could find no reference to recovery being limited to 7% per payment. Please let me have the paragraph reference when you have had the opportunity to again review the document.

2 minutes ago, i claudius said:

Yes but not a lot

Sent from my [device_name] using http://Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Sorry, I don't understand ?

5 minutes ago, transam said:

One thing has been cleared up by the posted paper....They can reclaim fraudulent payments from ones pension...

..........and they can do so without court proceedings

9 hours ago, MaeJoMTB said:

Yet choose to live in a country that has neither?

Life has many apparent contradictions. I used to live in Saudi Arabia but it would clearly be erroneous to deduce from this that I believed in beheading.

"I think therefore I am" but from this is does not follow that " I'm pink therefore I'm spam".

6 hours ago, MaeJoMTB said:

You are wrong,

The DWP would need to prove he was "permanently resident abroad" and in which country.

And IMHO that would be impossible for a person without some sort of permanent residency or citizenship in another country, or their own admission/declaration.

At the moment in the UK, you need to prove guilt, before you can claim anything.

 

As far as I know, the UK government couldn't even prove I had ever left the UK (let alone where I went).

(The police certainly don't know I am out of the country, 'cos they keep calling round my UK address to try and arrest/question me)

(Same for debt collectors)

The DWP allowed me to open a gateway account last year (has to be done in the UK).

The only foreign transactions on my bank accounts, were a few Philippines ATM withdrawals.

And my passport was lost in London yesterday (if anyone asks).

Wrong, I don't think so. You are still thinking about this in terms of the DWP bringing a claim against the OAP. They don't need to so they don't have to prove anything. They first recover the money without court proceedings the you are the one who has to prove things.

See below taken from the DWP website:

"DWP benefits that we can recover overpayments of under social security legislation
(S71 of the Social Security Administration Act) and that we can take compulsory
deductions from.
 Attendance Allowance
 Bereavement Benefit
 Carer’s Allowance
 Disability Living Allowance
 Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
 Incapacity Benefit
 Income Support
 Industrial Death Benefit
 Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
 Jobseeker’s Allowance
 Maternity Allowance
 *New style Jobseeker’s Allowance
 **New style ESA
 Pension Credit
 Personal Independence Payment
 Pneumoconiosis, Byssinosis & Miscellaneous Disease Benefit
 Reduced Earnings Allowance
 Retirement Pension
 Severe Disablement Allowance
 State Pension
 Universal Credit
 Widows Benefit
 Widowed Mothers Allowance
 Workers Compensation (Supplementation) Benefit

1 minute ago, MaeJoMTB said:

I don't have to fly back anywhere, as I have never left the UK.

Then you don't have a frozen pension problem.

3 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

One small point here ,if you are on a pension and have no money you get legal aid ,no way would you have to pay 25k for lawyers fees , and a case like that would never last 5 days anyway ,

Well alright, drop the figures down to one day and £5000; its still sufficient to be a deterrent.  You would have to apply for legal aid which you might get if they were suing you, which of course is not what we are discussing here; you certainly wouldn't get it if you were suing them. You would also have to fly back and fund your travel, subsistence and costs of temporary residence in the UK so you would need to be a brave men to bring a case of this kind.

23 minutes ago, nontabury said:

Yes, I see your point, though I think, correctly or not, that the DWP would not take that action, as it could leave a pensioner in a very vulnerable position.

I have heard of pensioners being caught out,in claiming the yearly increase, to which they were not ‘legally” entitled. What happened then,was they were sent a strong letter,with notification that their state pension would revert to the frozen figure, however there was no insistence that they Must make a payment back, or that the DWP would deduct those overpayments from their future pension payments.

They then continued to receive their FUll frozen pension.

When the DWP become aware that an over payment has taken place they start by reducing the payment the correct level then write to the pensioner seeking recovery of the past over payments. If the OAP agrees and pays back the money that is normally the end of the matter. If the OAP can't repay the overpaid amount the DWP have provisions to agree a planned recovery of the overpayment with the OAP.  If a recovery plan is agreed that is normally the end of the matter as the OAP is unable to default in payments that he has agreed to and which are in any event, taken automatically. If he is crazy enough to resist through court proceedings then he is funding his own legal expenses, say £25000 for 5 days.  He would have no prospect of success as the DWP could prove irrefutably that the money was theirs and had been overpaid. The only possible case that could win would be where the OAP had told the DWP that he was moving to a "frozen" country and the DWP had paid the unfrozen pension despite being told this.