Hello Aes

Could you please share why you have chosen to pay in 7 years of NI contributions? Will this for example work better than investing in an annuity as far as return for your money? Or does it give you other options?

Thank you

I chose to do that because I have only 13/30 years, having left UK 26 years ago and will reach pension age in 2 years. I can pay in at a reduced rate before end December 2009, then I will have 20/30 - and once at 20 I could at a later date, if I so wish, pay for an additional maximum of 6 from non qualifying years. I worked out that paying in 7 now, I will have that money back in 2 years, making a significant increase to my pension, risk free, for the rest of my life (as long as the UK government doesn't collapse ). Lots of people I know have done this.

As an expat you can pay Class 2 NI which was GBP120 for me last year. This gives you basic pension after 30 years of contributions, plus stuff like maternity benefit. I chose to keep paying NI when I left the UK 20 years ago as I wasn't sure if I'd be staying abroad. Whether I could make more money by investing the money isn't really an issue for me as the Basic state pension has more guarantee behind it than the other pensions/retirement funds I have. It, along with US SS, is the conservative part of my retirement portfolio.

Surely you'll need a UK account for the transfer. Also I'm always dubious about giving banking info to anyone. Just walk along to your local bank and pay for the darft, easy and it works.

Thanks. Cannot write much right now as I am work. I will look into upping my contributions or at least getting some more information about it.

As I explained my bank does not do this and the only available bank who may is
citibank and I would have to open an account there. when you are not in the center of a city eg. New York it is hard to find a bank that does international transactions and they will not do unless you have account. Cost to do this with Western Union comes out to over $500.00...about 250+ in the exchange rate and
$255.00 transaction fee plus any additional charges required. This seems a bit excessive.

A bank that doesn't do foreign bank drafts! Wow! Surely you have access to Bank of America or another reasonably sized retail bank. They all do foreign drafts and it's easy to open an account.

Well NUN, you may find this hard to believe, but, not every bank in small town US will give you a foreign bank draft!!! I lived in a small town in South Carolina, had an account with the local Bank of America and when I asked for a foreign money order, bank draft to be drawn I may as well have been asking for the moon to be served up on a platter with a nice glass of wine. We had to drive 40 miles into Charlotte North Carolina to get what we needed.

Maybe they just didn't understand what you wanted. My BofA has to order the draft and it generally takes some one a while to work out the software on the computer.

I spoke to the manager and I explained very clearly what I needed, and was told that they did not do international drafts at their branch.

Our bank didn't do them last time I asked, they looked at me like I was crazy, I wanted a check in GBP and they acted like there was no such currency
No idea where I'd get one here in the boonies.

I agree, they just don't understand there are different currencies in the world! I once had a cheque sent from my father in pounds - it took my bank two months to get that exchanged into US dollars!!

Boodles, where were you in SC? I live in Charleston now, but lived in the Upstate area for 18 years.

Thought I'd update. I am still not finished with this mess. I now have over
$5000 in limbo somewhere and my cut off date for paying voluntary contributions is fast approaching. Basically I was given wrong information again
re numbers to wire GPD to HMRC. I received the letter with information to pay vol. cont. It took 4 weeks to arrive by mail. I have 8 weeks to pay the contributions from the date of the letter. Information sent was to send money by GBP check and envelope to mail. As that was impossible, I got the info to wire using swift. Well, another mess. First set of numbers was incomplete, update was wrong and am still waiting for information on third number set as to whether this time wire has gone through. HMRC is stating that it will take 2 weeks for them to know if received. Meantime the clock is ticking on my window to pay. .
I paid this money through Citibank as I wanted to make sure it would arrive on time, so paid through my son's account there..
Most of the people I have dealt with are very nice but you get the odd one who is condescending and nasty and usually that is the person who gives the wrong information.
This whole experience has been unbelievable. Even though they agreed with me on the error from before, they are only allowing a paid on time status on 6 out of 9 years paid. This too is wrong because if I had the correct information from the start, all the contributions would have been paid on time.
Also, they owe me more than I am paying so it is ridiculous I have to go through this. I understand that they want to make sure I would pay but this is getting to be too much agrevation.

I was also informed that citibank does not do foreign drafts anymore.

To pay my voluntary contributions I sent a cheque in dollars from my account here by mail to my sister made out to her in the UK. She is paying out of her UK bank account, sending a cheque in sterling by mail to pension people as per instructions I have given her on years I am paying for. This seems to be the easiest way. Haven't heard back from her yet.