Standard lifetime allowance

bobthesod

I have just received my P60 from my BT pension.
On it is has this at the bottom and says 0.00%. it then says this only applies to ex employees whose pension commenced after 06/04/2006 ( which mine did not)

Last year i had a policy mature at 65 which, stated i had various options, one IIRC was to take it as a lump sum ( it was only £800.00 or so)
The assurance company asked me if i had had received any other lump sums and i quoted the BT payment, but not when i got it. which was on early retirement in 1999. They then said i could not have the lump sum from them as the TOTAL amount of lump sums exceeded the allowance, and i would be only allowed a pension of .....get this....£9.00 PER YEAR.

So the question is, have they got it wrong and i can i get back to them and retrospectively claim a lump sum if this lifetime allowance does not apply to pensions/lump sums commenced prior to April 2006.

Bad news is all i have is one letter left as i was so disgusted with the offer, i just binned everything. however this letter does refer to a lump sum.

Or am i just spitting in the wind?

Thanks

dunstonh

The assurance company asked me if i had had received any other lump sums and i quoted the BT payment, but not when i got it. which was on early retirement in 1999. They then said i could not have the lump sum from them as the TOTAL amount of lump sums exceeded the allowance, and i would be only allowed a pension of .....get this....£9.00 PER YEAR.

There is no lump sum allowance. For the BT scheme, pre April 2006 would be 25x your income to calculate the lifetime allowance used up and post April 2006 it would be 20x income.

I suspect you are attempting to use triviality to get the £800. You cannot use that because your BT pension prevents it. However, you could use stranded pot rules. That allows up to two pensions of under £2000 to be paid as lump sums.

So the question is, have they got it wrong and i can i get back to them and retrospectively claim a lump sum if this lifetime allowance does not apply to pensions/lump sums commenced prior to April 2006.

No, they have not got it wrong. Although its not the lump sum that is causing it. But they would be able to tell from the size of the lump sum if you exceeded it or not.

john_cavill

Gordon brown robbed my pension in the late 90s can I claim anything?
I now only receive £93 per month

dunstonh

Gordon brown robbed my pension in the late 90s can I claim anything?

How did he rob your pension?

I now only receive £93 per month

A pension is only as good as what you pay into it. A figure of that amount suggests contributions over a typical timescale of around £20pm. If you pay peanuts in you get peanuts out.

bobthesod

Thanks dunston. They did ask about the lump sum on the BT pension, and then said i couldn't have the 800 as a lump sum as i had exceeded the limit. As there was a date quoted on the P60 of 2006 and this wa last year, i might have thought my BT pension was done at the same time, and not 13yrs previous!!
could you xplain the'stranded pot' you mentioned. After all even though it is only a @trivial' amount of 800, it is my 800 and yet i would nneed to be as old as Methusula to even make a dent into it. As my life expentancy is another 13-5 years thats only 135 out of that 800. so they make a nice tidy profit out of mre of 600.

nice work... Now if i could get a bit more squeezed from them (its the principal,not the amount) it would be nice. so how do i get back to them? this is all new to me!!

Regards