Jump to content
Complete France Forum

New state pension rules


Quillan

Recommended Posts

Now that you need 35 years NI contributions to get your full state pension I don't have enough. Reading through the website it seems that I would qualify to buy the years I need to get the full pension via a Class 2 stamp which fortunatly is only £2.75 per week. Has anyone bought extra years, how simple was it and how much per year did it work out for them?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, just get in touch with Newcastle and then send them the money. It all works perfectly well. 

Stopped paying a few years ago, so unless I dug out the paperwork cannot remember how much.

They will need proof that you are now working, if memory serves, as the two rates are quite different.

This was something we did very very soon after we moved to France.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having run a business in France you should qualify for a French pension too, and that could make up the difference without buying in extra years...

Remember you apply through France and the amounts are calculated on the basis of the number of years paid in each country.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ofcourse the 'trick' is to be 'alive', but what other investment of nearly three quid a week, would give you £150 odd quid a week? This way, he can have both[:D]

ps even if it was nearly £14 a week that had to be paid, it is still on heck of an investment!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From someone that is lacking 9 years I dont think its that good, when I had the chance some years back it was a lot better, I think also its cheaper to pay for missed years within the last few years than to buy years as an ex resident as a voluntary payment, its been too long now for me to buy back my missed years.

not sure either if the £3.50 is for missed years or the voluntary payment but I will use that figure anyway.

£3.50 times 52 weeks = £182, that will get you one 35th of the state pension, dont know how much it is so will use your £150 a week figure, so it brings you £4.28 per week.

I take back what I said, it is a good deal!!!!!!!

I'm sure when I looked into it it was going to cost me a lot more than that or to bring in a lot less.

can someone confirm what someone like myself who has no NI contributions for the last 10 years would have to pay to buy missing years, for the first time ever I will soon be in a position of being able to afford to do so.

Editted, Ano's posting crossed with mine. I had a look and isnt it something to do with the difference between class 2 and class 3 contributions? the £13 a week is more like the figure that I remember.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="AnOther"][url]https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/deadlines[/url]

[/quote]

Thats for the current scheme, well thats how I read it, and not for the new scheme which I will come under hence the 35 years. The current scheme requires only 30 years. It used to be that you got two years free but thats now gone so if you had 28 years plus the two you got 30, job done. Now of course the goal posts have move and may well move again between now and when I am due for my state pension. Seems you spend half your time catching up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found this:

Your situationEligible to pay voluntary contributionsCurrent rates
Employed but earning under £111 a week and not eligible for National Insurance credits YesClass 3: £13.90 a week
Self-employed with profits under £5,885 and a small earnings exception Yes, you can choose to pay voluntary Class 2 or Class 3 contributions - they count towards different benefits Class 2: £2.75 a week or Class 3: £13.90 a week
Living abroad and employed or self-employed immediately before leaving the UKOnly if at some point you’ve lived in the UK continuously for 3 years or paid 3 years worth of contributions - you must also have been employed or self-employed abroad during the gap you’re making contributions forClass 2: £2.75 a week
Living abroad and not working in the country you moved toOnly if at some point you’ve lived in the UK continuously for 3 years or paid 3 years worth of contributionsClass 3: £13.90 a week

 

Seems like you need to be employed of self employed abroad rather than inactif.

Looks like I might be able to make payments from now on and perhaps for the last couple of years as I will be doing some voluntary retrospective declaration des impôts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last time I looked into this (some years ago) I was under the impression that if you worked in France you weren't eligible to pay voluntary NI (of whatever class), but these new rules do seem to indicate you can. So based on this, if I was working in France between 2009 and 2012 I could pay voluntary class 2 and then voluntary class 3 for 2013 and make up the now missing 5 years - seems like a pretty good deal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look we have done this. Got the number of years up and had a UK pension forecast and it has all worked. You can go back about 7 years and then pay up in each future year from now.

edit, hasn't wooly done this and got his pension? I seem to remember him saying he had, but I suppose I might be wrong about that, sometimes I misremember.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And to save me reading back through it all, didnt I see that I/we have until 2019 to do so?

I have always been pragmatic about this and still having 13 years before the state pension at the current qualifying age I had never ruled out that I might not have some more working years in the UK, or perhaps dole claiming years as I think they count which could be doubled up with voluntary contributions.

However it seems that if I am self employed in France, a statute which i dont even think exists, then I will be able to make these £2.75 contributions not the £13.50 ones.

I'm sure that before I was disqualified through not having paid NIC in the last 5 years but from what I read as long as someone has worked and paid NIC for 3 years they can contribute.

Whats to stop someone, say a French guy who worked 3 years in england 20 years ago, and who is approching retirement, from making 32 years of voluntary contributions? It would seem to be a great investment.

Too good to be true? Well I always knew that dropping the pension qualifying years from 40 to 30 was too good to be true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We know that a friend of ours living in France, already drawing his reduced UK pension asked about making up the missing years and was told "yes" you can.  The workings were duly done. He owed them less than the back-dated pension he would get and the pension people sent him a cheque, and now he gets the full pension.  Go for it - if you are near to pension age (unless you are likely to be dead in a few months...)  it is a good deal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing is even though I appear to meet the criteria to get the £2.75 it seems incredibly cheap especially in the case of somebody who needs say ten years worth, you couldn't invest that amount of money in a private plan to get that much back per year (it would cost yo around £30k) so its a bit 'to good to be true'. I am sure that once the government works out whats going on they will shut this down as it could potentially cost them a lot (they are already saying the new system will save them £2.2bn a year). So I think I shall be contacting them on Monday firstly for clarification and then to arrange payment. Its that good a deal if your skint to put it on your credit card and pay it off monthly and still come out smiling.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="idun"]Look we have done this. Got the number of years up and had a UK pension forecast and it has all worked. You can go back about 7 years and then pay up in each future year from now.

edit, hasn't wooly done this and got his pension? I seem to remember him saying he had, but I suppose I might be wrong about that, sometimes I misremember.


[/quote] Apart from very short periods and a hiatus of ten miserable years, I spent all my working time abroad. During this time, I would write a cheque every few years (maximum seven) and send it off to the pensions people. Did they call it Class 3 or 4 contributions ( I think the latter). The final cheque was returned as, under the new pension rules, I had enough to qualify for a full pension. But I am not sure if I could qualify for these new pensions as I did work after leaving UK, for a few years, though not in France.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wooly if you go through the links given the minimum is 10 years worth to get a pension and then it is worked out on number of years up to 35. If you only had 10 years then your probaly get just over £40 per week pro rata (if that is how they calculate it). However under the old system you need 30 year (as of 14 years ago) so all you need to get the full amount is 5 years. You might find because of your work record that you pay the higher rate to get the extra years but the only people who will know is the DWP. So contact them by phone with your NI number handy and they will send you a letter. From there you can go back to them and ask them if you can buy more, that you have worked abroad for more than three years and how much.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I applied for and received a pension forecast in 2000. The forecast was based only on my UK contributions.

We still had our business in Spain at the time, and I gave details of this and all other work overseas on the application form for the forecast.

The forecast set out how much pension I could expect, and by how much I could increase this by making further payments.

At the time, I was allowed to make up to 7 years' back payments, the amounts of which were listed year by year, and to make future voluntary payments until I was 65. The fact that I was still making contributions in Spain did not disqualify me from making voluntary UK contributions, but this may have changed.

I believe the EU may have legislated against one making S.Sec payments in more than one EU country, as a corollary to not allowing more than one country to demand these payments.

Quillan complains that 35 "qualifying" years of payments are now required, having just been increased from 30, but when I got my UK pension 44 qualifying years were required for a full pension, and it was not increased even slightly when the number of years was reduced from 44 to 30 [:(]

However, I was told that the payments I was still making in Spain would be added to my total of qualifying years to entitle me to a UK pension, although they would not increase this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have just received a form from HMRC which seems to be a 'proof of continuing existence' type of thing. It must be counter-signed by an official-type of person Doctor, Maire etc.

Is this a new thing as we have never had one before.

Is it relevant to overseas pensioners only or do all UK pensioners get one?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A friend of ours alledges that he receives a full UK state pension and a

reduced French state pension based on contributions he has made here.

Is this possible?

Yes so do I.

 

I had enough years to qualify for a full OAP before  I left the UK, and since being in France I also worked enough to get a small pension here.

Remember that French pensions are calculated on contributions paid in; there is no standard pension such as the OAP that everybody gets. Amounts vary widely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]We have just received a form from HMRC which seems to be a 'proof of continuing existence' type of thing. It must be counter-signed by an official-type of person Doctor, Maire etc.

Is this a new thing as we have never had one before.

Is it relevant to overseas pensioners only or do all UK pensioners get one?[/quote]

I have had this 3 times in my time in France once for the OAP and twice for another pension.

Don't know if UK residents get it too, but it is standard for us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]We have just received a form from HMRC which seems to be a 'proof of continuing existence' type of thing. It must be counter-signed by an official-type of person Doctor, Maire etc.

Is this a new thing as we have never had one before.

Is it relevant to overseas pensioners only or do all UK pensioners get one?[/quote]Semi new and OH got one.

They have been doing this on a random basis for a while but now all non UK residents in receipt of a state benefit will have to submit proof on a bi-annual basis.

If you lived in Spain you wouldn't be getting it because Spain and UK talk, France and UK don't - quelle surprise !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]We have just received a form from HMRC which seems to be a 'proof of continuing existence' type of thing. It must be counter-signed by an official-type of person Doctor, Maire etc.

Is this a new thing as we have never had one before.

Is it relevant to overseas pensioners only or do all UK pensioners get one?[/quote]

It's for overseas pensioners only; as some dodge pots have died and their ever loving have still been claiming it. Probably the same ones who complain on Anglo/French forums about fat  people in the UK claiming benefits.[:D]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got one in the post today - been in receipt of pension for 5 yrs now, I was already living abroad when it became due, and except for having to prove who I was (passport, birth cert etc) to claim the pension originally, I have not been asked until now. So maybe it is a new thing.  I've already had this from some of my other pension providers so suspect it it just the usual tidying up.

OH has not yet had one, but his surname is much further down the alphabet ... and we find any govt correspondence regarding pensions etc (eg - increase each yr) comes quite separately often with several days if not weeks in between.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...