Railway Pension Misquote

1957scooby

I took early retirement from the Railway at 51 years of age in November. At the time I took a cash lump sum and a guaranteed yearly pension. I have today received a letter through the post from them stating that they have overpaid my lump sum by just over £500. They have asked me to send them a cheque for the difference. Where do I stand with this, if it's their error why am I having to suffer?

MikeJones_2

Hi scooby,

1957scooby wrote: »

...I have today received a letter through the post from them stating that they have overpaid my lump sum by just over £500. They have asked me to send them a cheque for the difference. Where do I stand with this, if it's their error why am I having to suffer?

Sorry to hear of your problem.

If it's a mistake - an overpayment - have they explained it to you?

Co-incidentally, as a TPAS adviser I have only today received further guidance on cases involving mistake.

Quoting the first line of the guidance (which is for TPAS advisers) but gives you the 'flavour' of the section concerned:

'Generally speaking, an incorrectly paid payment is recoverable. The fact that a scheme may have been careless, or even compound their error, does not prevent them from recovering a payment that has been incorrectly paid.'

Perhaps not what you wanted to hear, but at least you know where you stand.

This assumes that you have not 'relied upon' the £500 or 'changed your financial position' because of the overpayment.

They ought to give you a reasonable time for repayment, but given that the original payment was only made in the last 10 weeks, it might be reasonable for them to expect full repayment of the £500 sooner rather than later.

Hope this helps. If you're still unclear, post again.

Mike

I work in the field of Pension Education and Pension Guidance in the UK. I am a member of the Specialist Pensions Forum as well as being a Voluntary Adviser for The Pensions Advisory Service. I work with scheme members, employers, trustees, scheme administrators and advisers on most things to do with employer sponsored pension schemes. The views expressed by me in this thread are my personal opinions. You should seek professional advice from an appropriately experienced and qualified adviser. I am not an IFA.

chesky369

Also, the sad fact is that if they're also in charge of paying your regular pension, they probably have the ability to make adjustments in those payments in order to claw back their money. So it might be an idea to make contact with them in order to agree a plan, rather than have them put something into place.