Bigger Jim

For those of you who are a trifle confused there is a paper here that may or may not help.

http://www.retirementexpert.co.uk/wi...ng-abroad.html.

Jim

Domino

I think you will find your reference disagrees with the official reference
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Pensions...ment/DG_179916

tex_ritter

Winter fuel payments? Designed to help those in the UK I thought. Lots of talk about 'I paid into the system' well lets say you did from ages 16 -65 and you draw pension for twenty years then you will get far far more out of the taxpayer than you ever paid in not counting things like hospital stays costing thousands of pounds a week.

I'm all for us all getting our pensions wherever we choose to spend our retirement but for petes sake claiming winter fuel is really taking the pee. You choose to live in Spain (or wherever), you said I'm off to live abroad, you turned your back on day to day living in the UK...nobody made you do it. Now when things are tight for many expats you want the country you left to bale you out well sorry I really don't think you have any right to this extra payment given to UK pensioners and you have a blooming cheek demanding it. Move back to the UK and apply...live in Spain? don't be cheeky enough to ask for it let alone demand it.

scampicat

PLEASE let me repeat once more, for those who don't seem to have got it the first time, is that the entitlement to Winter Fuel Allowance has got NOTHING to do with what you have paid in, nor for how long, it is a residency-based Benefit. So if you are not resident, then you will not qualify. It does not matter whether you have paid on for fifty years or five, (or none).

EsuriJohn

If you are resident in the September when you reach the age of 60 (?) you draw it in UK. If you move within the EU it moves with you.

licinius

But people in Spain still get it & then accuse me of being full of spite & bile for saying it's wrong!

scampicat

Yes, I know, but if you are not resident to qualify, (e.g. if you are already living abroad when you reach the qualifying age) then you will not get it. The age to qualify is increasing in line with womens' retirment age. If you are resident in the UK at the right age and right time then you will qualify for it and can take it abroad with you. But you have to be resident in the UK to qualify initially.

Mitzyboy

You are not listening are you!
You see only what you want to see
No one is accusing you of that for having an opinion, which you are quite entitled to have. You are on a British Expat forum and you run down British Expats in a nasty way. What do you expect!? I give up!

Rosemary

Th Uk has MPs ripping off the country right left and centre, the bankers virtually bankrupting the country and making millions out of it, benefit cheats from every part of the world and for the umpteenth time what do we argue about on here the WFA a benefit that people are legally entitled to.
As I have said in the past the worst enemy of the working class is the working class, it no doubt suits the MPs to have arguements such as this to deflect away from the fiddle of the likes of Fox.

Graham

Domino

as do entitled people in France, Germany, Italy, and all other member countries of the EU.

are you giving them stick about this payment on the relevent country sections of the BE Forum ? NO only Spain !!

are you having a go at people living in the UK who are taking the WFP when they are earning over £100k NO only Spain !!

as others have said, stop your attacks on people who in most instances have been given the payment due to being in the UK at age 60. I receive it and never filled in a form that I remember. It is automatic.

By the way, the part of Spain I live in during the winter has more cold weather than some parts of England, with snow, ice, etc. And no its not halfway up a mountain.

Agnes

I haven't read this thread so am prepared to be shot down in flames!
a friend of mine, from South Africa, arrived in the UK shortly before his 65th birthday, paid national insurance for 4 months only, qualified for winter fuel allowance,then moved to Portugal to live, taking with him his winter fuel allowance for life. He didn't come to the UK for this benefit, and he left because he didn't like the weather in the summer!!

gill556

I paid for 45 years and I was over 60 years of age when I retired however I moved before the 3rd week in September and informed them so I get nothing. My argument would be that if some pensioners in Spain get the allowance then we all should. What difference did it make to the UK that I didn't stay for another couple of months to claim?. I had considered not informing them until after the September but decided I couldn't live with the knowledge that I had defrauded the system. My husband is 4 years younger than me so he also got nothing.

whitelinen

A previous poster has gone to much trouble to explain that this is a residence based benefit and has nothing to do with the amount paid in NI so as such you are not entitled to it.

I have a male friend who after paying into the UK system for 35 years became a father for the first time and then moved to France. He is no longer eligible for Family allowance/child benefit and neither will he get the WFA. Never once has he whinged on about it like some people on here.

It is what it is the rules are clear so why this eternal bitching on about something that is never going to change?

whitelinen

Yet you chose to live in a country where corruption is endemic.

Dick Dasterdly