susanRem

Hi All

Joined BE way back in 2009 and obtained my 143 CP visa in August 2009 and validated early 2010. I am still here in the UK. My house is still unsold, after 3 years and dropping price by over £30,000. I am so fed up. I am the only member of my family still here. Daughter Citizen, son permanent resident, and Australian grandson. I lost my partner last year which hasn't helped my state of mind. Is anyone else still in this position? That was just a bit of bacground.

On a recent Phil Spencer Down Under programme he mentioned the Contributory Parent Visa and the UK State pension. He stated that "timing was everything as the state pension was fixed at the exchange rate at the time you first claimed it on moving to Aus". I know I won't get any further annual increments but he definitely said the exchane rate was fixed. Is this true?

Thanks Susan

carzinoz

Hiya,

I don't know but I'll be interested to hear the answer. I always assumed it is paid in £'s either to a UK bank account and then you bring it over yourself or it is paid in £'s to an Aus bank account and you are at the mercy of the banks and their own exchange rates.

I doubt it would be fixed cos the UK government would not want to be paying you at high exchange rate if it dropped.

Grayling

Not true

It is paid in sterling so you will get the current exchange rate on the day it is paid

Big Galah

But once you take it, the amount in pounds/pence is fixed - not indexed linked, no increase ever. The only variable would be the exchange rate and the effect this would have on the dollar amount you get at this end.

That's what an in-law receiving the UK pension while living in Oz told me anyway.

Wol

BG (Above) is correct.

Say you begin receiving the state pension in Oz and it's £350 per month, and the exchange rate is 1.5: you would get something like $525 here.

In ten years' time, if UK inflation was 4%pa the state pension would be £518pm - but you would still be getting the original £350 each month. If the exchange rate was then 2.0 you would receive $700 - but if it was 1.2 you'd only have $420.

Bear in mind too that if you have a company pension in the UK and the employer contracted out (Barbara Castle?) *part* of it - the minimum guarantee part - may also be affected. In my own case the MG part relating to pre-April 1988 is unindexed, and the part after then is capped at 3% regardless of the RPI/CPI.

Politicians of all colour have refused to index Australian-based pensioners' rates (along with some other countries').

QUOTE: (Gordon Brown):
>>What is morally wrong cannot be economically right (Gordon Brown)<<

carzinoz

I don't understand. Are the £'s I'm paying in to the NI from Oz somehow different to the £'s I'd be paying if I stayed in the UK, grrrr!