Hola I am new oap and have been told that 'cos I left U.K. a year before my pension was due I can't claim heating allowance. I am told a group of oap's in costa del sol took pension dept. to eu court and won their case. Anyone know about this? It seems a typical British con. If I was still in U.K. I would recieve this benefit, what happens to that money now??? Lets face it ex-pats it is brass monkey's at the moment!!!

Afaik you had to actually be claiming it before you left the Uk to be able to claim it here. I dont know about a court case tbh, but there are many benefits that people cant claim here that they could have in the UK.

There was indeed a court case with the EU over this.

It was decoded that the WFA was an "exportable benefit" but not an absolute right.

In other words if you already had it they could not take it away but if you hadn't got it you couldn't apply for it after leaving the UK.

The court case was over disability allowances, and was won. Heating allowance you can only get here IF you had received at least ONE payment in the UK.. we got ours last week.. As regards the court case, it has been widely reported in local papers, so a search on-line should help.

The court case about WFA was about 5 years ago. The disability case was more recent.