State Pension For Married Women

margaretclare

if you divorce just before you are sixty you can claim full pension from ex husband's stamp, you still live together as before but are £84 pound a week better off,if this is true and made known more widely i can see lots of divorces happening maybe then goverment might sit up and take notice as surely this is discrimination.

What a horrible idea. Have we really sunk as low as this? What happened to the marriage vows, solemnly made? Are they not valued? Our remote ancestors regarded 'oath-breaking' as one of the worst of crimes.

The answer would be IMHO that everyone should have their own pension provision and should not be able to profit from someone else's contributions. Especially not when a marriage has ended, the two people are free to remarry, and it is as though they were never married in the first place.

Makes me shudder....

Margaret Clare

seven-day-weekend

Agree absolutely with Margaret Clare

CIS

For reference Iam by no means condoning it , Iam just making people aware of the details if they are divorced/thinking about it.:D

genewallis

I have recently obtained a pension forcast and note that by being born two months late I am not entitled to HRPs', meaning I am 16 years short in contibutions plus I paid married womans stamp as my husband was a student for a few years and we could not afford the extra payments. Coupled to this my husband is 65 after 2010 which will mean he will only get a single persons pension. So it seems to me we will both be worse off under the new 2010 rules. I can pay six years back payments but this will only give me 12/30ths pension and I've got to find that money which as my husband is now retired will not be easy.
Any advise out there

pat

CIS

There is no point where you could have been born too late to benefit from HRP as its still an ongoing system ( at least until 2010).

Anyone who had a child who was either born after 1978 or who turned 16 after 1978 will usually qualify unless they already had a qualifying year by virtue of their earnings or they paid the married woman's stamp. If you don't meet those exclusions I would query your NI records with HMRC.

seven-day-weekend

genewallis wrote: »

I have recently obtained a pension forcast and note that by being born two months late I am not entitled to HRPs', meaning I am 16 years short in contibutions plus I paid married womans stamp as my husband was a student for a few years and we could not afford the extra payments. Coupled to this my husband is 65 after 2010 which will mean he will only get a single persons pension. So it seems to me we will both be worse off under the new 2010 rules. I can pay six years back payments but this will only give me 12/30ths pension and I've got to find that money which as my husband is now retired will not be easy.
Any advise out there

pat

I don't actually understand your post.

As CIS says, you can't be born too late for HRP.. So could you clarify what you mean please.

I also don't understand what you mean about your husband only getting a single person's pension because he retires after 2010. So could you clarify that as well please.

If you have only ever paid married women's stamp you won't be entitled to either HRP or to any pension in your own right. You will have to claim 60% of your husband's when he reaches 65.

I don't understand why you think you will be worse off; the rules after 2010 benefit a lot more people and thousands of people (especially women) will be better off. You certainly shouldn't be worse off.

Maybe it's me but could you explain further please?

ryscar10

Hi Margaret,

Your posts have been a blessing for me to read. I realise your posts on this thread was quite a while ago however they are the only information i've been able to read and understand whilst perusing my mothers pension crisis for over 6 months! Hopefully you're still active on here....
basically my mother received a pension forecast to advise she will be receiving only 19pence per week when she retires! THIS IS LUDICROUS! She was born in 1952 and worked continuously since the age of 15 to the present day. She married my father in 1971, She had 4 children and only ever taken 6 weeks off at any one time after giving birth. She advised me that sometime mid 70's someone phoned her up out of the blue and offered her to go on the married persons reduce stamp for a short term bonus payment????? I've been unable to track any of this down and believed she had the wrong end of the stick as everyone i contact 'fobbed' me off. However then i read your posts and dug a little further and 'kind of' understand.

My point is surely all these married women who are now realising their in the same situation have really been sold out. They obviosuly had no proper understanding of the long term effects and wasn't given a proper explanation by the 'pension people'. I truly believe they have been mis advised/ill-informed etc. and really feel the urge to do something about this and get it into the public domain. Do you happen to know if such cases are being argued anywhere? i was hoping to contact Martin Lewis direct as surely he could fight the case similar to the unfair bank charge case etc. The outcome to hopefully get some form of compensation for these poor women. My mum is due to retire in 2012 however my dad is a year younger than her so at present she is panicking how she will live once she retires and working longer is not an option as her job (after 30+ years) is coming to an end with contracts being terminated and redundancy offered (forecast £6000!!) Also she has just been diagnosed with arthritis in her leg so was looking forward to retiring but not anymore now she won't receive the basic state pension.

In your opinion is there a potential cause to protest against this unfair policy from way back in the day. I'm sure lots of women would support the cause......

Thanks for your time xxxx

stagey_2

Hi ryscar10 - there are many of us out there - and no we didn't understand the full implications - I started to pay a 'full' stamp when I was 49ish when I divorced and remarried - so I now have the grand sum of £69.95 a week. I am still working at nearly 65 - but that's OK - it gives me the jam and I shall beable to continue working for some years if I wish - I think you'll find that as we are a dying breed as it were, there will be little that will be done - in fact we weren't even 'allowed' to pay back additional NI to get a bigger pension (as I understand it) where others were. Barred for some reason. Good Luck for your Mum.

ryscar10

Thanks for your reply, i'll keep marching on and let you know if i get anywhere.....watch this space xxx

seven-day-weekend

It was a choice to pay the 'married women's stamp'. You could always choose to pay the full one. The 'small' stamp entitled you to no pension in your own right. Many women chose it so that there would be less deductions from their wages at the time.

I think it was down to employers to explain and apparently many didn't bother to do it properly. I must have been very lucky with mine because I always understood the implications of paying the 'small' stamp and although I paid it for a short while, soon realised it was a no-brainer ansd switched to the full one.

Although I sympathise with those who genuinely didn't know what they were signing up for, I don't think you'll have a case. They are getting what they are entitled to from a choice that they made, and officially at least, they knew the implications of that choice

Thank goodness the choice was removed for women getting married after (I think) 1974, although those already on the 'small' stamp could remain on it if they so chose.