Parents, pensions & wills

p00hsticks wrote: »

THe fact that your father was getting a regular sum each month and your mother gets a proportion of that since he dies suggests it is likely to be a Defined Benefit scheme - one where he was promised a certain amount each month linked to his salary, however long he lived, with a similar benefit for his widow if he died before her.

If this is the case, there is no 'pot' to be passed on further on your mothers death.
The pension scheme itself will be able to confirm the type of pension and whether this is the case.

Capita hartshead is a name that comes to me. I'm sure this was on paperwork after he died if that helps.
At any rate what happens to all the money he put in then after my mother dies? Feeds the government?
And how would i make sure that my money doesn't go that way? I personally think it's very wrong but that's just my opinion.

she could in the future buy voluntary Class 3 NI contributions at a cost of around £733 a year, and each year bought would add around £4.35 a week to her state pension up to the maximum of £159.55

I would of course have to get her to use the calculator but it would be hardly worth it wouldn't it?
£4.35 per week adding up to £226.20 per year so it wouldn't even come close to covering the £733 she'd have to pay out.

As for her benefits i'm sure i remember her talking about disability living allowance and income benefit.
But now i think it's DWP EESA and DWP DLA if this helps any and she's had these things throughout.

atush wrote: »

i am afraid this is a very ignorant comment.

You can call it ignorant, i call it a guess as i don't know but don't worry, no offence was taken regardless ATEOTD it's just words on a screen so i'm not going to get offended And you're spot on why i came here.

We spoke a little about pensions before he died and i do know that he paid into a pension for the vast majority of his working life and he began when 14 i think it was. May have been 15. I remember it was certainly before 16 when he left school and started work. I know in addition to his normal job role and as well as being a health and safety person at his workplace also i do remember him being some sort of pensions representative for the company and used to go to meetings in London. Not trying to say this made him anything supergreatamazing but he wont have done all that and paid barely anything in i can say for sure.
Regards the employer he was with as he retired, i also remember while they paid in they didn't pay more than him. I just thought at the time it was quite good how his employer at least paid in while mine didn't.

So the employer didn't pay most of the contributions and in the time since his death with the amounts my mother has received since i would also doubt she has received more than he put in over the years. It'll be about 5 years now and i highly doubt he only put aside enough to cover himself for 5 years of retirement with nothing after that, in fact he didn't. And that would've been on the figure he would've been pulling each year and not a percentage of it which is what my mother is getting.

Not arguing here, just saying.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

That's the nature of pooled risk. Some people are winners and some losers. The purpose though isn't to ensure an inheritance is passed to the next of kin.

While i accept that and agree, if i could have the option to go one way and have that happen or go another and have it not happen then so long as there's zero difference to the money i receive in retirement (since like you said that's what it's for) then obviously i would go the way of making sure it could pass on.