# State pension advice



## Rob Escoces (Mar 5, 2020)

Hello all, in November I shall be filling in the form to claim my UK state pension but there are 2 questions which seem to be impossible to answer.... it asks for the addresses of where I have lived and worked in the UK , but I have lived in at least 20 houses and had as many jobs and it will be quite impossible to remember them all, addresses, dates, companies worked for etc.... Do I really have to try and put everything or just some more recent and easily remembered examples.
Thanks.


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## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

Don't worry to much about that, just put the best that you remember. Your pension is based around the NI contributions you have made throughout your work life.

Steve


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## PdB20 (Apr 13, 2020)

Just tell them that you cannot remember everything. They will fill in the gaps using your NI number.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

It's appalling that since the Cameron regime decided pensions were a benefit, you have to jump through hoops to claim what is rightfully yours. When I got mine six years ago it was pretty much automatic, they wrote to me asking me to confirm my address and bank account number and that was it. Now you have to fill in a 20-page application form with information they already have on file somewhere.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Alcalaina said:


> It's appalling that since the Cameron regime decided pensions were a benefit, you have to jump through hoops to claim what is rightfully yours. When I got mine six years ago it was pretty much automatic, they wrote to me asking me to confirm my address and bank account number and that was it. Now you have to fill in a 20-page application form with information they already have on file somewhere.


My husband claimed his state pension in 2014 and had to complete the same 20-page application form. I didn't see the need for it then, and I don't now, because the DWP have all the details of your NI contribution record and all the employers you worked for.


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## PdB20 (Apr 13, 2020)

I am with you, you pay into the system all of your working life and they have the gall to call it a 'benefit' putting you alongside those people who have never worked at all. I read today !that the next pension rise will be just £4.40 a week! Will be able to put a deposit on a pair of socks!


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## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

Alcalaina said:


> It's appalling that since the Cameron regime decided pensions were a benefit, you have to jump through hoops to claim what is rightfully yours. When I got mine six years ago it was pretty much automatic, they wrote to me asking me to confirm my address and bank account number and that was it. Now you have to fill in a 20-page application form with information they already have on file somewhere.



My wife claimed her state pension over the phone from Spain and was done and dusted within 10 minutes!! No forms but proof who she was, she claims it was "very easy" to put in her claim.

The payment went into her account the next month or so.

Steve


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## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

PdB20 said:


> I am with you, you pay into the system all of your working life and they have the gall to call it a 'benefit' putting you alongside those people who have never worked at all. I read today !that the next pension rise will be just £4.40 a week! Will be able to put a deposit on a pair of socks!


If that figure is correct at £4.40 A week (£17.60 each pay day) I'll be quite pleased with that. It's better than the rises, if any, I used to get while I was working!

Steve


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

£4.40 on a standard state pension of £175.20 is 2.5%, I doubt many working folk will be getting anything like that.

Pensioners are one of the few groups who have not suffered financially due to COVID and personally I don't give a rats what they call it. 

It ill becomes anyone getting upset because they perceive people who receive other government benefits - to which the vast majority are perfectly entitled - as being beneath them, if they received child benefit it makes them hypocrites too.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

MataMata said:


> £4.40 on a standard state pension of £175.20 is 2.5%, I doubt many working folk will be getting anything like that.
> 
> Pensioners are one of the few groups who have not suffered financially due to COVID and personally I don't give a rats what they call it.
> 
> It ill becomes anyone getting upset because they perceive people who receive other government benefits - to which the vast majority are perfectly entitled - as being beneath them, if they received child benefit it makes them hypocrites too.


There are many of us who paid in more but get less. How much increase will we get, if any?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

MataMata said:


> £4.40 on a standard state pension of £175.20 is 2.5%, I doubt many working folk will be getting anything like that.
> 
> Pensioners are one of the few groups who have not suffered financially due to COVID and personally I don't give a rats what they call it.
> 
> It ill becomes anyone getting upset because they perceive people who receive other government benefits - to which the vast majority are perfectly entitled - as being beneath them, if they received child benefit it makes them hypocrites too.


Most other pensioners won't be getting anything like that, either. The rise in public sector pensions will be 0.5%, based on the CPI figure for September 2020 released today. My other employment pension will go up by 1.1%, as their increases are still based on RPI. Both much less than the 2.5% rise in the state pension.


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

Not sure how you pay in more to get less but for a state pension whatever you're getting it will be +2.5%


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

MataMata said:


> Not sure how you pay in more to get less but for a state pension whatever you're getting it will be +2.5%


Some of us had to pay in for 45 years to get a lower pension than the 'new' pension. For example, my pension this month is 743 € - how does that compare?


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

At todays rate you are only about £1.25 per week down on the current pension of £175.20.

It's true that those who qualified for their pensions prior to when the new flat pension came in would likely be getting less than that but in the UK they could potentially benefit from pension credits and relief on things like council tax etc. to bring them up to a broadly similar position but with it being such a complicated and convoluted system it's inevitable that there would be winners and losers. 

The majority of those add ons and top ups are means tested and not exportable so it wouldn't be fair for someone who had voluntary chosen to leave the UK to blame the country for the loss of or a disqualification from them. 

The whole point of the new pension was to do away with the dizzying array of potential additional benefits but to have automatically brought all pensioners up to the new pension would have been totally unaffordable.


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## Max Rigger (Aug 2, 2020)

I did the online application for my dad back in June/July, took ten minutes if that. He had a letter about three weeks before his birthday giving the dates and amount of his first pension payment and the date he'd start getting full pension four weeks later, sounds like its far easier to do it online than on paper, certainly no jumping through hoops.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Max Rigger said:


> I did the online application for my dad back in June/July, took ten minutes if that. He had a letter about three weeks before his birthday giving the dates and amount of his first pension payment and the date he'd start getting full pension four weeks later, sounds like its far easier to do it online than on paper, certainly no jumping through hoops.


But does your Dad live overseas, or in the UK? There are different rules for those who live overseas to claim their state pension.






State Pension if you retire abroad


How to claim State Pension if you're overseas - payment, tax, change of circumstances - contact the International Pension Centre




www.gov.uk


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## Max Rigger (Aug 2, 2020)

Good point, he's based in the UK but lives part of the year over in Canada (mom is a Canadian).


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## tebo53 (Sep 18, 2014)

Lynn R said:


> But does your Dad live overseas, or in the UK? There are different rules for those who live overseas to claim their state pension.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When my wife applied for her UK state pension over the phone we had lived here in Spain for 6 years. She was on the phone for 10 mins or so to complete the claim, answered various questions to prove who she was and received a letter 2 weeks later to confirm everything. Payment goes in the bank every 4 weeks. Easy peasy!!

Steve


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