Voluntary National Insurance contributions - what should happen?

[Zaphod Priest]

My attempt to pay voluntary NI contributions hasn't gone smoothly.

 

Last October I 'phoned the Future Pension Centre.  They checked my record and told me to complete the online form "Apply to pay voluntary National Insurance contributions when abroad", which I did.  I then checked when I could expect to receive a reply, and discovered it would be in January.

 

In March I submitted a complaint saying that I hadn't received a response.  After a bit of toing and froing I got details of the bank account through which I would pay and told to give my NI number and name as the reference - no PIN number.

 

Now they've got my money, how are they going to know which years to allocate it to?  And how should the process have worked?

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks

[BangkokReady]

Presumably they will apply it from now until you stop.

 

I believe this is different from paying for missed years.

[Upnotover]

What are you actually trying to achieve?  Ongoing payments or missing years?  

[SMIAI]

You've left a bit of your story. How you arrived at the amount that you decided to pay. I guess that was the to-ing and fro-ing.

Online, you are presented with differing options of the cheapest and most beneficial years that will improve your forecasted pension. The process of deciding how much you should pay will have included the information of which years pertain to the total amount to be paid.

Since you asked about which years, it appears to me  that you want to cover some previous years.

Create an online account if you like.  https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record Then you will see if the payments have been allocated. 

 

[topt]

20 minutes ago, SMIAI said:

Create an online account if you like.  https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record Then you will see if the payments have been allocated. 

It may take a while for that to happen. I think current estimates are in excess of 16 weeks for payments to be allocated - but he may be lucky........

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-14519849/Pensioner-patient-wait-state-pension-payment.html

 

My payment in May last year was not credited until December and I believe only because I filed an online complaint - but I had been paying for quite a few years so was not a new isolated payment which made the delay even more nonsensical until you factor in the no. of increased submissions due to the changes they made.

 

OP there are some other threads in this specific forum which may be worthwhile reading.

[Zaphod Priest]

47 minutes ago, Upnotover said:

What are you actually trying to achieve?  Ongoing payments or missing years?  

 

Missing years.

[Zaphod Priest]

42 minutes ago, SMIAI said:

You've left a bit of your story. How you arrived at the amount that you decided to pay.

 

That's shown when you check your National Insurance record online.

 

[Zaphod Priest]

44 minutes ago, SMIAI said:

Online, you are presented with differing options of the cheapest and most beneficial years that will improve your forecasted pension.

 

I believe that only applies to people in the UK.  Those living abroad can't pay on line.

[SMIAI]

That may be the case, but I don't think that precludes you from creating an account in order to check as to whether your records are up to date.

By the sounds of it, you've already checked online. So what happened? Did you just calculate the total payment by yourself or were options presented to you? 

Just wondering how you came to the amount that you chose to send.

 

[GanDoonToonPet]

I've just been through the exact same process, starting January this year.

 

After you completed the online CF83 form, did you recieve a letter with shortfall tables, detailing which weeks / years you are eligible to pay class 2 NIC?