Hi There,
Can any one recommend how i go about enquiring about the British State Pension? Which i have paid into for 27 years. Will i loose it? Can i keep up my national health stamp from here? As i have no pension from here. I have only 16 years to work before retiring. I left the UK in 2006 have have not contributed to it in that time.

Any suggestions what i can do?

Thanks Kath.

The Pension Service
Tyneview Park
Newcastle upon Tyne
ENGLAND NE98 1BA

Ask for a forecast.

The number of years needed for a fuull pension a few months back
from 44 years to 30 year ..with the forecast they will give you the opportunity to pay any years up

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/ca3638.pdf

Great news for British Expatriates it seems that the UK Government have at last changed the criteria for the UK OAP scheme, it used to be that we had to pay in 44 years of contributions and not any more we only have to pay in 30 years. I have attached a link below but last time one of my clients tried to get In it was down as demand had been real high.

It has been a while since I posted but could not resist with this great news. If you need to check that this is correct then you will need to visit the Pension agency website, bear in mind this is what I do for a living but by all means check.

Tony Mullaney
Kestrel International
Did you leave a pension in the UK?
[email protected]
www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/cnr/osc.htm#5

The changes came out in july 07 ...took your time ...

Took him nearly half a day to reply to a pension post! He's getting lazy with his fat commissions. If I email him, do you think he'll see me right?

I know, sorry, I forgot my log in and it was not till I went through my old diary that I found it, there have been many changes over the last year or two, the latest one in the pipeline is the protected right portion of our UK pensions being allowed to be invested with the rest of our pensions, if this one comes about I will try to be faster off the mark.

You got in quick are you in the business? or did it affect you ? it will likely affect a load of people and of course like Kathy we can make up the payments so we get full pension.

The news was posted here in july
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showp...5&postcount=14

Hi There,
Thanks for all your replies on my query on the British State Pension. I will look into it straight away.

Thanks Kath

Due to the US/UK Social Security agreement, you can apply US SS payments to your UK NI contribution (therefore improving your UK pension).

Has anyone on here looked at which is the most beneficial, i.e., using US SS contributions to receive a US government pension, or applying it towards your UK state pension?

(I already know you have to have at least 40 US SS credits to receive a US pension, BTW).

I have one from each. They are only combined if, in one of them, you have contributed some money, but not enough to make the minimum required for a pension. Then the larger of the two takes account of the lesser contributions in calculating the pension.

I'm sure I've read on here that the amount it costs to make up for lost years' NI contributions is miniscule compared to the benefit (i.e., how much UK pension you can potentially get). Do you know if there's a limit to how many years you can make up?

I see that this year, for example, Class 2 contributions are 2.30 a week (about 120 GBP a year), which sounds like hardly anything. If a person only had 10 years' NI contributions and wanted to bump up to 30 years, that would only need about 2,400 GBP to receive a full UK state pension. Am I missing something? This seems too good to be true ...

On my forecast they wanted between 266 pound for the 97/98 pereiod

up to

382 pound for the 05/06 period

Still sounds like a pretty good deal ... did you take them up on it?

(Hold on, I think I read in an earlier thread that you have over 30 years NI contributions - you were thinking you'd need 44 years when you asked for this information, am I correct?)

Yup ..I had done 34 years ..and in the letter ..they gave the figures but said ..
wait for the new legislation ... and of course ..I no longer have to add to it ..
and you dont have to pay any extra all at the same time ..you can spread it ..
across the years.. they give you the options