Advice for boosting pension needed

lindajscott

Hello, I would appreciate any advice you can give me to help with boosting my Mum's state pension.

She will be 65 later this year and has just retired from nursing. She has worked since leaving school but took a break to raise a family.

At the moment she has 19 qualifying years from work contributions and 1 year Home Responsibilities Protection for the year she claimed child benefit whilst in the UK. The other years she was raising a family and out of the country.

Since my Mum was out of the country for 11 years and not claiming UK child benefit she does not come under the Home Responsibilities Protection scheme. They have also said that she is too late to pay Class 3 NICs for those years.

Is there anything she can do to boost her state pension?


Thank you! : )
P.S. Pre 1975 NICS figure is 539, not sure if this makes a difference.

kidmugsy

Is she drawing her state pension at the moment?

lindajscott

Yes. My Mum started drawing this at 60. Thanks

lindajscott

Actually have got more information, my Mum has 30 qualifying years in total as I did not count her pre1975 years. So she has 30 out of the 39 required for her age. They have said she cannot make additional contributions as she does not qualify because of her age. So it looks like had she been born four years later she would have the number of years needed.

kidmugsy

Was your mother's time working abroad within the European Economic Area (i.e. EU and some others e.g. Norway, Switzerland ....)? If so, and if she made the local equivalent of National Insurance contributions there, she could be due something. You could enquire of the Pensions Service. If some of her time was in, say Australia, and it happened long enough ago, again she might have an entitlement.

McKneff

[
But if she is 64, she has been drawing her pension for nearly 5 years,
what makes you think she can do anything about it now..........

jem16

McKneff wrote: »

The qualifying years required (as from last April are 30 years), not 39

Yes but OP's mother retired almost 5 years ago when the qualifying years were 39.

McKneff

jem16 wrote: »

Yes but OP's mother retired almost 5 years ago when the qualifying years were 39.

Thanks Jem, I wrote that, realised I was wrong, deleted it so i hve no idea how it got posted. :rotfl::rotfl:
Senior moment maybe;)

lindajscott

kidmugsy wrote: »

Was your mother's time working abroad within the European Economic Area (i.e. EU and some others e.g. Norway, Switzerland ....)? If so, and if she made the local equivalent of National Insurance contributions there, she could be due something. You could enquire of the Pensions Service. If some of her time was in, say Australia, and it happened long enough ago, again she might have an entitlement.

Thanks for your help, unfortunately she was not working whilst out of the UK but did claim child benefit for the years she was in Rep. Of Ireland. The person I spoke today did not think this could be considered so if there is any provision I could quote, I would be most grateful.

kidmugsy

Sorry, we've exhausted my thin seam of knowledge. Maybe one of the experts here can weigh in?