E106 renewal

[Coco]

When we moved here last year my husband was given an E106 that was valid for 2 years but mine expiredin January this year. When I contacted Newcastle I asked why I hadn't been given a two year E106 like my husband I was told that I probably hadn't paid enough contributions. I told them that he had paid full contributions for 30 years and I had paid full contributions for 28. When they checked it up they agreed that indeed I should have been given a two year E106 and sent me a new one.

Now, I understood that you could only have one for two years and that was that. However, when I mentioned this to someone who has been living here for the last 5 years and not working in France but also not of retirement age he said he just kept getting new ones. He said he can do this because he has kept up his voluntary NI contributions in the UK. We have both done this too, to make sure (as much as one can these days!) that we don't lose out on our pensions.

I would phone Newcastle and clarify this myself but as the left had never seems to know what the right is doing in those offices I thought I would try here first and see whether this is in fact correct or whether our friend is getting renewals by some fluke or other.

It does make sense to me that if you are keeping up your contributions you should be entitled.

Coco

[Teamedup]

LAST EDITED ON 29-Jun-04 AT 03:07 PM (BST)

We pay voluntary contributions, but as far as I can remember reading, this is solely for pensions and not for anything else.
I would contact Newcastle and ask them though....

And we simply don't pay enough in voluntary contributions to have any entitlement to anything else.

[Quillan]

Your E106 is only granted if you have two complete consecutive years worth of Class 1 contributions prior to requesting one. It then lasts for a maximum of 2 years after which time you must have registered in the EU country in which you live.

Unfortunately voluntary payments are only for your pension and nothing else and are known as Class 3.

Class 2 stamps are what self employed people pay in the UK but again do not automatically give you a E106 in fact I am sure they dont count.

Class 1 contributions can only be collected via PAYE in the UK.

Unfortunately I rather think your friend may be a bit confused unless he/she has a UK Company through which he/she is being paid and PAYE is collected and they get an annual P60.

The good news is that you are automatically covered under your husbands E106 till that expires. We went all through this some 6 months back (I posted a load of questions about this and got some good answers in B&B part of the forum) and its the reason why you need to start paying your cotistations ASAP to ensure you are covered when your E106 runs out.

You don't have to pay the full cotistations because you can estimate your earnings and get them reduced to match. They (CofC) told us however that if you go over your earnings then there are problems. We only paid 688 for our first year using this method.

You could try contacting Peter Owen (posts here) its his business to know these sort of things and can answer your questions more better than I and is is always up to date on the law etc.

Im afraid the old Ive paid in for the last 30 years makes no difference at all although I see your point.


Chris

http://www.chambresdhote.com