sheilamarsco

my brother 84 years old has been living in spain for over 20 years. he has spanish and uk pensions. he lives alone as his wife left him recently. he is now in hospital and has emailed me to say he can't live alone as he also has mobility issues and wants to come back to scotland. he has asked for information about care homes or rental property. he has no bank account or savings. my question is how can i arrange to have his pensions transferred to the uk. as this is the only income he will have to provide for accommodation. thanks

angie_329

For the UK pension your brother needs a UK address, so use yours for him to start with. Also for registering with a GP, which he should do straight away upon his return.

Enclosing a copy of his passport bio page, he should write to the pension company in uk, or state pension ( he can phone them), to stop paying into the spanish account and into his UK account as he has now returned to the UK. This gets done usually within a month

As he probably won't have a UK bank account now the easiest thing would be to add him to your account for the time being . Once he is in UK he can open a 'basic' account ( hsbc do this) by law banks need to offer a basic account. To do this he will need proof of address in UK and maybe a copy of a pension statement, his NI number . You can write a letter stating he is staying with you.. I recently helped someone in their 80;s return from cyprus who had the same issues and the bank accepted a letter from a lodging he was staying at. There is a charge card system to pay pensions to those who do not have a bank account but it is being phased out soon.

For the Spanish pension try posting in the Spanish forum? Your brother will need to find out if they will send the pension to UK in pounds or not, and some way of giving the bank instructions, when he is no longer there, to send the balance of his funds to the UK. Does he have phone or internet banking with them?

Depending on his savings/ assets, ( less than £23000 I think) he can register for social retirement housing after he becomes ordinarily resident in UK. This is normally three months but if he has health issues this can be sooner. Its important for the UK GP to assess him. He can sign up for NHS health care immediately on his return. I suggest you look for retirement rental housing on this site, which is a voluntary organisation to help older people find housing

https://housingcare.org/eac-news/

spouse of scouse

This booklet by AgeUK has information specific to Scotland that may be of assistance
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalasset...d-may-2022.pdf

sheilamarsco

many thanks angie wonderfully comprehensive advice. i will follow this up and hope for succress. best wishes and thanks again