Child benefit - changing claimant

hawk30

I just rang the child benefit helpline to discuss changing the child benefit from my name to my husband's, so that he would get his NI contributions for pension purposes as a SAHD. The woman on the phone said I had to call the NI contributions helpline first as you don't always have to change claimants. The helpline isn't open until Monday now and I'm curious - does anyone know why this might be the case?

xylophone

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/start/claiming/more-than-one-claim.htm#6


"Changing your mind about who gets Child Benefit
If you want someone else to claim Child Benefit, for example to help protect their pension, you'll need to tell the Child Benefit Office that:
you want to stop getting Child Benefit
you want someone else to get it instead - that person will need to make a new claim to Child Benefit"