# UK NI Credits for French Pension



## PeterMarseille

Hi everyone,

Thank you for letting me onto your forum!

I wonder if I can pick your brains? I applied for my French pension in January and went through the appropriate
enquiries with the English NI contributions office, who eventually sent all the information to France.

My problem is, although I qualify for a full English pension, I only have 157 of the 167 qualifying trimestres in France; in the 1980s, UK employers were not paying my stamp.

What can I do about this? In France you can use an Attestation d'Honneur to declare you worked for firms who didn't pay your contributions, does something similar exist in UK?

Also, no credits were registered during the early 1980s for 5 years at university. Some people received credits for full time education during this period: others not. My reading of the 1975 legislation in force at the time suggests these credits should have been made, no?

Finally, is there anyone you can go to for a problem like this? French accompaniment sociale is completely out of depth with this kind of problem. Is there someone elsewhere.

Thank you in advance for your patience and kindness to anyone replying

Peter


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## EuroTrash

Assurance Retraite are the ones that deal with this and they claim to be easily contactable, so I see no point trying to get answers anywhere else.. 
Apparently you can arrange a phone call or videocall, or book a rdv. That's what I'm planning to do in the New Year.


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## PeterMarseille

Thanks for the reply. Been in contact with CARSAT for 9 months, but they can do nothing about the huge inexplicable gaps in my NI record


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## EuroTrash

Maybe contact the UK to try and get them to fill in the gaps? I don't suppose CARSAT or anyone in France can change your NI record.
As I understand it that won't stop you getting your pension but it will be slightly reduced unless you wait until you're 67 (is this set to go up?) at which point it no longer matters.


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## PeterMarseille

Thanks again. 65 is when it no longer matters, if you don't qualify for a full pension in France the ASPA will grant you 800-900 euros per month if you are in a position of relative difficulty. The problem is in the UK where confusion reigns - not just in my case, but generally, regarding credits for full time ed and translating to French trimestres etc etc


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## Clic Clac

PeterMarseille said:


> I applied for my French pension in January and went through the appropriate
> enquiries with the English NI contributions office, who eventually sent all the information to France.
> 
> My problem is, although I qualify for a full English pension, I only have 157 of the 167 qualifying trimestres in France; in the 1980s, UK employers were not paying my stamp.


I applied for my (tiny) French pension in the summer, but never involved the UK.
Are you saying that this is a route to take your UK pension early, or are they both starting at 67?


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## EuroTrash

For me according to my projections 67 is the age when being short of trimestres stops mattering. I don't think that is anything to do with ASPA, that wasn't mentioned, just that at 67 I qualify for retraite à taux plein automatique. I suppose it depends on what year you were born 




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www.lassuranceretraite.fr


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## EuroTrash

Clic Clac said:


> I applied for my (tiny) French pension in the summer, but never involved the UK.
> Are you saying that this is a route to take your UK pension early, or are they both starting at 67?


As I understand it -
You can't claim your UK pension earlier than your UK pension date.
But if you take your French pension before 67 (in my case and probably yours too), the amount you receive is reduced if you haven't completed your target number of trimestres in France.
And France can add your qualifying years in the UK to your trimestres in France, to potentially avoid your pension being reduced.
Have I got that right?


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## PeterMarseille

Clic Clac said:


> I applied for my (tiny) French pension in the summer, but never involved the UK.
> Are you saying that this is a route to take your UK pension early, or are they both starting at 67?


If you have a tiny French pension and have no other resource, at the age of 65 you can apply for Allocation Solidaire des Personnes Agees which will guarantee you a pension of 800 to 900 euros ( I think )


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## PeterMarseille

EuroTrash said:


> As I understand it -
> You can't claim your UK pension earlier than your UK pension date.
> But if you take your French pension before 67 (in my case and probably yours too), the amount you receive is reduced if you haven't completed your target number of trimestres in France.
> And France can add your qualifying years in the UK to your trimestres in France, to potentially avoid your pension being reduced.
> Have I got that right?


Yes. But the devil lies in how UK and France decide the equivalence of the qualifying years


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## EuroTrash

PeterMarseille said:


> If you have a tiny French pension and have no other resource, at the age of 65 you can apply for Allocation Solidaire des Personnes Agees which will guarantee you a pension of 800 to 900 euros ( I think )


Ah OK, I didn't know that.
ASPA is normally recovered from your estate at succession, isn't it - does that apply to these payments? (I'm just asking out of curiosity, that's not my situation, so no worries if you don't happen to know.)


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## PeterMarseille

EuroTrash said:


> Ah OK, I didn't know that.
> ASPA is normally recovered from your estate at succession, isn't it - does that apply to these payments? (I'm just asking out of curiosity, that's not my situation, so no worries if you don't happen to know.)


I wouldn't imagine so, French benefits are generally means tested ( unlike UK ) only against revenue - eg RSA is paid irrespective of capital.


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## EuroTrash

ASPA is a bit different though I think, it doesn't come via CAF and it tends to be offered as a loan rather than a benefit?
From a quick google it appears this is recoverable but only if your estate totals above a certain (quite low) threshold.


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## PeterMarseille

No, it's not CAF and I don't think it's a loan. If the French State tries to recover what it's paid to you as part of their pension service after your death I would be very much surprised. I could be wrong, of course, my problems are elsewhere. Good luck tho'!


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## SPGW

PeterMarseille said:


> no credits were registered during the early 1980s for 5 years at university


Mentioned in other threads, there is a process with CNAV "_Demande d’évaluation de rachat de trimestres pour la retraite au titre des années d’études supérieures_" (sorry - 'temporary error' so can't access the _assurance retraite_ site to copy the link). Nothing obliges you to actually buy these trimestres, but the evaluation process triggers a recognition of these and any other "gaps" in your history from the CNAV perspective. Rosny-sous-Bois was the CNAV office I dealt with - very helpful by phone/email.


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## PeterMarseille

SPGW said:


> Mentioned in other threads, there is a process with CNAV "_Demande d’évaluation de rachat de trimestres pour la retraite au titre des années d’études supérieures_" (sorry - 'temporary error' so can't access the _assurance retraite_ site to copy the link). Nothing obliges you to actually buy these trimestres, but the evaluation process triggers a recognition of these and any other "gaps" in your history from the CNAV perspective. Rosny-sous-Bois was the CNAV office I dealt with - very helpful by phone/email.


Oh thanks! That's superb. My experience is that if you start these kinds of enquiry in French sys, they are very often fruitful!


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## SPGW

Looking again, it may be too late to regularise the missing trimestres if you have already made your pension request to CARSAT... I recall there's a point of no return but not sure what that is.


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## PeterMarseille

SPGW said:


> Looking again, it may be too late to regularise the missing trimestres if you have already made your pension request to CARSAT... I recall there's a point of no return but not sure what that is.


To pay the missing trimestres would be at absolute minimum 10K, but as you said the process of "recognition" in the French system is always a good first step to a possible revaluation with UK pensions. You always have to proceed step by step, has been my experience.


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## ccm47

If as you say your UK employers were not paying your stamp, do you have your P60s,''or indeed any wage slips from the companies that didn't pay? If so, the contributions can be "deemed"i.e. credited to your account. Keeping live the facility to do this is one of the principal reasons for the words "DO NOT DESTROY" on a P60.
Years back I often had to do deeming for people, especially those in the entertainment industry or so it seemed.


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## PeterMarseille

I have kept P60s for the last 35 years, but this is all 1979/1984, before the P60/45. Another age. Worked for Camden Council, for example. It now seems practically impossible to contact them directly if not a Camden resident. On a lighter note, if anyone has seen the film Mammuth, this is probably what I have to do


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## EuroTrash

I seem to recall that when I was doing student jobs in the 70s and 80s, HMRC used to send me a letter each year informing me that my contributions for that year weren't sufficient for it to count towards my pension, and inviting me to pay the requisite amount if I wanted it to count in the future. But that was because I'd only worked a few months, maybe they didn't do that if you'd worked for the full year but still had missing contributions.


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## ccm47

OP you may be in luck. Employers are only required to keep wage records for 7 years but councils in particular archived the records because they have their own pension scheme. I can recall going to one such storage facility and routing through some pre-1960 records to determine what rate of contributions had been paid and for how long. If you write to the Finance Director at Camden they will be able to direct your letter to the appropriate section.

ET is right you should have received a letter saying you did not have a qualifying year and how much you needed to pay. Most of us, as students, just ignored it, we were just too young to care.


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## PeterMarseille

EuroTrash said:


> I seem to recall that when I was doing student jobs in the 70s and 80s, HMRC used to send me a letter each year informing me that my contributions for that year weren't sufficient for it to count towards my pension, and inviting me to pay the requisite amount if I wanted it to count in the future. But that was because I'd only worked a few months, maybe they didn't do that if you'd worked for the full year but still had missing contributions.


Thanks for the response. According to the 1975 legislation then in place, if you were a full time student you should have had your stamps paid for that.


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## PeterMarseille

ccm47 said:


> OP you may be in luck. Employers are only required to keep wage records for 7 years but councils in particular archived the records because they have their own pension scheme. I can recall going to one such storage facility and routing through some pre-1960 records to determine what rate of contributions had been paid and for how long. If you write to the Finance Director at Camden they will be able to direct your letter to the appropriate section.
> 
> ET is right you should have received a letter saying you did not have a qualifying year and how much you needed to pay. Most of us, as students, just ignored it, we were just too young to care.


Thanks for your help. According to International Pensions in the North East, I shouldn't have to do anything, they assign me a caseworker who will do the digging. It's a fight on both fronts trying to keep my French pension application "alive" for the time the UK revises its response. Might just sit it out till 66 and claim UK Pension. At least that way I won't ever be subjected to a French based means test for any future post retirement income. For anyone else reading these exchanges, I want to say it is fearsomely complicated.


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