Foreign wife trying to claim my dead fathers pension benefits

fabforty

jh2009 wrote: »

If you haven't done so, the royal mail website may be worth a look to see what the rules on their spouse pension provisions are:

http://www.royalmailpensionplan.co.uk/

Death benefits tend to be:

a) spouse pension - commonly payable automatically to a surviving spouse.

b) lump sum benefit

Looking at the two:

a) spouse pension

Most pension schemes provide a spouse pension automatically to a spouse, and its rare for a trustee to sit in judgement on a marriage, regardless of what the family think of the spouse. In fact parts of any spouse pension belong legally to a spouse regardless of the state of the marriage at death/pension scheme rules.

Some Schemes though can "review" the pension payable to a spouse if there is any evidence that the marriage had broken down at death. In this case they may choose just to pay the legal minimum they have to pay. Evidence they would look for would be if there was evidence the marriage had broken down (eg member and spouse living at different addresses at death).

Others operate a "gold digger" rule where they investigate suspicious marriages (eg a 20 year old marrying a 90 year old who dies days after the wedding). These generally tend to apply to short marriages, eg within 6 months, rather than 5 years.

Others will reduce a spouse pension if a spouse is significantly younger than their spouse (eg if they are 30 and the spouse was 70 they may pay a lower pension).

You have said that they are looking for copies of your birth certificate. Im not sure why they would request this as a condition of payment of the spouse pension. Although you may be powerless to stop a benefit being paid, you are also under no obligation to help them set such a benefit up.

If you have strong feelings the marriage wasn't genuine (ideally with evidence that they were living apart at death) then you could write to the scheme. Although this is likely only to affect the level of any pension paid to his wife vs stopping the pension being paid. Any reduction could not be payable to any other party (unless theres any children below 21 in full time education, or any disabled children above that age).

b) Lump sum death benefit

This hasnt been mentioned in your posts, but is a possibility.

This may be a guarantee of eg 5 years of pension payments if your father was old enough to retire at death (assuming he took retirement on the day he died). Alternatively the scheme may provide a refund of contributions rather than this sort of benefit. You would have to ask the scheme for confirmation if such a benefit may be payable.

If there is a benefit it is likely to be payable to his spouse, but if you have evidence of the marriage having broken down, then the trustee may have the power to consider this benefit (if there is one) for other dependants.

If you write to the trustee though, you would have to concentrate on facts/evidence about the marriage itself, rather than any form of opinion or personal attack on the spouse/marriage.

Evidence they would want would be that the marriage had broken down, details of any dependancy anyone else may have had on your father. Even the death certificate if this says "seperated" or shows your father and his spouse at different addresses at death could be used.

I'm sorry but I hope that his wife fights just as hard. As OP says, it is not about the money. Assuming that the OPs father was of sound mind and reasonably intelligent, surely if he had wanted his pension to go to his children and not his wife, he would have made provision for that - even if he and his wife were living apart when he died. What the OP thought about his marriage is (or should be) irrelevant.

And while it is easy to focus on the strength and validity of his relationship with the 'foreign bride' i.e. his wife, to be fair we know nothing of his relationship with his children. We shouldn't just assume that they are more deserving of his property/pension/etc than his wife or (anyone else for that matter).

jh2009

I'm sorry but I hope that his wife fights just as hard. As OP says, it is not about the money. Assuming that the OPs father was of sound mind and reasonably intelligent, surely if he had wanted his pension to go to his children and not his wife, he would have made provision for that - even if he and his wife were living apart when he died. What the OP thought about his marriage is (or should be) irrelevant.

And while it is easy to focus on the strength and validity of his relationship with the 'foreign bride' i.e. his wife, to be fair we know nothing of his relationship with his children. We shouldn't just assume that they are more deserving of his property/pension/etc than his wife or (anyone else for that matter).

Agree with most of the above.

I am just pointing out how pension schemes look at cases like this if there is any doubt raised by a family member, in that the family have to give credible reasons if they are contesting any benefits awarded, rather than writing (as ive seen in the past) a long letter focusing solely on why they personally can't stand his wife.

Maybe to clarify my post earlier, then if the OPs father was married/living with his wife on the day of death and theres no evidence to suggest otherwise, then its irrelevant what the family think or their feelings on this.

bendix

I don't know why it's even up for debate. Pension benefits are not inherited by children, but spouses do have entitlement.

The OP can scream and stamp her feet all along (and there are obviously issues there, but let's not dwell on them) but the fact remains he married his wife and it was his choice. Why the daughter needs to get involved I have no idea - it just sounds like spite to me.

The OP is just plain wrong.