Home Responsibilities Confusion

vix2000

Hi. Would someone be kind enough to explain HRP to me please? I was born in 1956 therefore will not recieve a pension until I am 65. I worked full time from 1975 until my eldest daughter was born in 1979. I then recieved child benefit continuously until my youngest daughter left school in 2009. I have recieved DLA since around 1986. I don't know if all this has any relevance to my contributing years as I really don't understand how they are calculated. I have worked part time on and off over the years but never earned enough to pay NI. If anyone could explain the implications of the above I would be grateful. Thanks.

anmarj

Hi

the HRP came in 1978, and what it does is reduce the number of qualifing years to get a state penison ie if you have 5 years HRP then you only need 25 years to get a full state pension instead of 30, but in order to get state pension you need to have paid or be treated as paid national insurance contributions. Hopefully this link should make it easier

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Caringforsomeone/DG_10018691

You can at any point contact the state pension forcast line and request an forecast, this would indicate if you would obtain any state pension at all in your own right.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Pensionsandretirementplanning/StatePension/StatePensionforecast/DG_10014008.

You would probley be better obtain a forecast to see where you stand

molerat

As above. Get a pension forecast. It will tell you excactly how many years you have got and if you have any missing years that you can buy.

margaretclare

It sounds very unlikely that you never paid any NI at all. It kicks in at a pretty low level of earnings IIRC.

With DLA, you may be getting your contributions credited.

The only 'unknown' would be whether you ever made the choice of paying married women's reduced contribution. You don't say what year you married, but if it was after April 1978 you wouldn't have had this option anyway.

sleepless_saver

margaretclare wrote: »

With DLA, you may be getting your contributions credited.

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get contributions credited on account of getting DLA.

Whiteknight

As others have said get a Pension forecast, you would only need to have 30 years of contributions to get the full basic State Pension - see how many years you have before considering paying anything as you will get some years for the time you spent at home looking after the children. With Pension Reform it will be near impossible for people not to get any sort of Pension.

vix2000

Thanks for all the replies. I think a pensions forecast is a good idea. I was recieving child benefit for 30 years so how many years would that give me? I never paid married womans NI.

seven-day-weekend

I believe you get, under the new rules, credit for a maximum of twelve years whilst receiving Child Benefit.

kindofagilr

vix2000 wrote: »

Hi. Would someone be kind enough to explain HRP to me please? I was born in 1956 therefore will not recieve a pension until I am 65. I worked full time from 1975 until my eldest daughter was born in 1979. I then recieved child benefit continuously until my youngest daughter left school in 2009. I have recieved DLA since around 1986. I don't know if all this has any relevance to my contributing years as I really don't understand how they are calculated. I have worked part time on and off over the years but never earned enough to pay NI. If anyone could explain the implications of the above I would be grateful. Thanks.

I work for the DWP but am currently on Maternity Leave so am not 100% sure on the rules since the Pension Reform.

But if you paid the full rate of NI which you would have from 1975 then you will def have HRP.

Under the new rules For those reaching State Pension Age (SPA) on or after 6 April 2010, each complete year (up to a maximum of 22) of HRP awarded under the existing rules will be converted into a qualifying year for the BSP. Converting years of HRP can also be used for up to half the working life to help satisfy the condition for bereavement benefits.

http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/state-pensions/home-responsibilities-protection-%28hrp%29

So that to me implies you can have 22 HRP years (but in your case 20 1979-2009) but I am unsure how they are converted now (as SP is now calculated using fractions rather than just simply how many years you've paid)

Def get a forecast, you might be suprised, I have to force my MIL to get one, she kept saying oh I wont have much of a pension cos she worked full time till she had kids then was off with the kids then has only worked part time since.

I pointed out to her that she would have been covered by HRP for most of it and that she only needed 30 years now instead of 39 and even then if she was missing a couple of years for example it might not be a full year she would need to pay back?

So she finally rang and was told she has 29 years so only needed to pay back one year and once she rang HMRC for the vol conts quote she found that for one of her tax years she was only missing 2 conts so only had to pay £26 (ish I cant remember the exact price) and now she is getting 100% BP which she didnt think she would get.

Sorry, went off topic.

If you get a forecast you may find you are missing the odd cont which might be worthwhile you paying back (as you only have 6 years to pay these)

seven-day-weekend

I am a new recipient of State Pension, having received my first payment on February 1st.

I did work for most of the time, but quite a lot of it was part-time and I had about thirteen years where I paid no NI.

I too was pleasantly surpridsed like kindofagilr's mum when I had my first Pension forecast and found that I was only three years short by the time my HRP was taken off. I then worked a further year so only had to pay two years of Voluntary Contributions to get my full Pension.

Get thet Forecast!

vix2000

Thanks for all the info everyone. Am awaiting my Gateway log in info and then can get my forecast.