Company pension wanting to reclaim payments?

kgldsun

After the death of my husband I was receiving £40 a month (his private company pension) in respect of my son aged 16. This month he became 21 and payments stopped. A letter now arrives requesting proof of my Sons education to aged 21. Failing this I will have to repay all monies to when the education stopped which was 18 months ago. I barely recall any stipulations and am keen to know whom the responsibility lies with and what are the implications if I ignore the request? Thank you in advance.

CLAPTON

usually child pensions in these circumstances are until 21 or they finish fulltime education which every is sooner... you will need to read the rules of the scheme
obviously it is the mother or childs responsibilty to tell the pension provider as otherwise they have no way of knowing.

kgldsun

CLAPTON wrote: »

usually child pensions in these circumstances are until 21 or they finish fulltime education which every is sooner... you will need to read the rules of the scheme
obviously it is the mother or childs responsibilty to tell the pension provider as otherwise they have no way of knowing.

Thank you 'Clapton' I do agree they would have no way of knowing, but not a good system for them to leave it over 18 months without any contact to check up on my Sons status. In my defence it has been just a genuine oversight.
What now are the legalities/process of it being claimed back?

jamesd

You tell them that you weren't aware of the in education requirement, apologise for the oversight and suggest that they send out a reminder of the condition at age 18 in the future to reduce the chance of others being caught out similarly. You offer to repay them the overpayment over say 36 months - twice as long as you were getting the overpayment for. They then make a counter-suggestion and you proceed to negotiate to find something mutually acceptable.

dunstonh

am keen to know whom the responsibility lies with and what are the implications if I ignore the request?

You have the responsibility to tell them when you are not eligible any more. When they find out, which often they will as they have people that check a sample of cases, you have to pay back money you are not entitled to.

Ultimately, you owe the money but they cannot demand immediate payment. It has to be a fair period. Typically 12 months repayment period is normal. However, as james says, by going in with an initially longer period, you get to haggle it down from there. Or even offer an immediate payment of 75% with no more after that. They may agree to waive some of it just to get the bulk back as its cheaper.

If you bury your head in the sand and ignore it, then they can take you to court if they want to.

RichandJ

dunstonh wrote: »

You have the responsibility to tell them when you are not eligible any more. When they find out, which often they will as they have people that check a sample of cases, you have to pay back money you are not entitled to.

Ultimately, you owe the money but they cannot demand immediate payment. It has to be a fair period. Typically 12 months repayment period is normal. However, as james says, by going in with an initially longer period, you get to haggle it down from there. Or even offer an immediate payment of 75% with no more after that. They may agree to waive some of it just to get the bulk back as its cheaper.

If you bury your head in the sand and ignore it, then they can take you to court if they want to.

+1

Good Admin should check this on either the child's birthday, at pension increase time or at the end of educational years or all or a combination of them.

We request a letter from the educational establishment giving the duration of the course & contiunuing FTE can be checked again at the end date, it's not rocket science.

jh2009

Legally they are entitled to ask for any overpayment back, and you should really repay it.

Whether they would enforce this through the courts is another question.

I suspect that they will write to you several times if you ignore their initial letter. If you do not reply, then eventually they would either write it off or you would receive some sort of official response taking it further.

In deciding how/whether to pursue this, i think they will look at several areas.

1. Did you set out to defraud them?

I think the answer is no, you made a mistake and forgot to inform them.

Their admin system has stopped the pension at 21. Although its impossible for them to know if hes left education at the actual date he left, they should have contacted you at least once annually, with no reply from you assumed to be that he is no longer in education. If they failed to do this, then this mitigates some of your own error. (although when he left you did have an obligation to tell them). Asking you retrospectively to confirm attendance sounds like a mistake has been made in their admin process.

If of course you lied and told them he was in education and he wasn't thats different - but i don't think you have done that.

2. The amount

£40 times 18 months is £720. A small amount for a pension scheme, and they do write off overpayments from pensioners who die having received an extra months payment which cannot be recovered.

The costs/time of recovering £720 are likely to make it not worth pursueing officially, unless they have evidence you have acted fraudalently.

3. Are you receiving a spouse/widows pension?

If you do, then they have some control over you as they are paying you a benefit. They could suggest a deduction or series of deductions from that, and that sort of request is harder for you to ignore.

If no spouse pension was payable, then they are dealing just with your son - a 21 year old ex student owing a few hundred pounds, who they won't know is even living with you any longer...... Not a promising prospect to keep chasing. ALso he will have lost his father in sad circumstances at a young age, so i can't see any pension scheme taking him to court unless there is clear evidence of fraud.

4. What does it say in the letter from the time setting the benefit up.

The terms should be clear, eg payable to 21 conditional on education/training.

If it just says payable to 21, or is silent, then you have a strong claim.

5. When did he actually leave education?

Do you have official confirmation of his date of leaving?

e.g.

he walked out february but was still enrolled until the end of june/july?

or

he sat his exams in may, but was still officially a student until the end of july?

The school/college could confirm his actual date. A clever question to ask is not his last day but the date he was enrolled to.

dunstonh

Here is a guide which will lay it all out for you:

http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/media/82768/mistakesandoverpayments.pdf

kgldsun

JH2009. Thank you so very very much for taking the time to explain the above to me. I have this evening wrote a very good letter, with the help of many of your pointers and basicaly ended with telling them to take whatever steps they feel is necessary. I added that I, nor my son has the finances to repay the debt in one instance, and would require evidence if it is a legal requirement. I am in receipt of no other payments from them which is lucky I suppose in some ways. I also certainly did not set out to defraud and a couple of years is a long time with no contact from them or recap as to what the situation was/is.
I also suggested they contact the necessary education dept, from their original details as I cannot be held accountable for somebody whom is not my responsibilty. Remembering data protection etc. They must obtain for themselves whatever it is they require.
I forgot to mention they are also requesting a one off payment of £50ish for the month of march being an error! (1 Month after my sons 21st)
I will keep you posted. Once again thank you so much for taking the time to write a valuable peice.

jamesd

The payments were to you for your son, not your son. Your son's financial situation doesn't matter because he isn't the debtor here, you are.

They don't have to acquire any proof of education, they can simply seek to recover from you all of the money paid from age 18. Up to you whether you want to supply proof that you were entitled to the money or repay the extra.

Given your letter's apparent contents you should expect them to take you to court to recover the £1,440 received between the age of 18 and 21. They will probably make at least one more try to avoid that, though.

jem16

kgldsun wrote: »

I barely recall any stipulations and am keen to know whom the responsibility lies with

My sons were paid a pension from their late father's scheme which was to be paid until they left full time education. I was always sent a letter each year asking me to confirm their education status and to inform them when they ceased full time education. As far as I remember I was also asked for proof and do remember getting the boys to get this from their university.