overpayment of pension due to remarriage

Paddie01

Dear all - My Mother in law has just received a letter from the Teachers Pension. Unfortunately for her it seems that she failed to report a change in circumstance when she remarried 10 years ago. The letter states that her widows pension ceased at that point and she now has to repay £36,311.76. Two problems with this 1) she has Alzheimer's and can not be relied on to explain what communication or lack of it she has had with Teachers Pensions 2) this demand will wipe her savings out in entirety (more than entirety).
Could anyone kindly guide me as to how to proceed on her behalf - thank you in advance for your help.

jamesd

Inform the TPS of the Alzheimer's and that it is not possible for that reason for her to say whether she did or didn't report it. Accept that even if reported it was still paid in error and that you accept that the money needs to be repaid. Given her health, explain the value of her estate and propose repayment from her estate after her death, with security over her home, if any, taken to ensure that this happens regardless of other creditors.

An alternative repayment approach may be to use an equity release mortgage which would pay the TPS faster and have somewhat similar end result, with the property being sold when she moves into full time care to repay the mortgage.

The TPS can be expected to seek repayment before death if possible, to reduce both their risks and time delay.

xylophone

She may be in a weak position.

I am assuming that she did have capacity at the time of her remarriage and she cannot fail to have known that the widow's pension ceased on remarriage . The Scheme's position on this caused much resentment and I was well acquainted with a teacher who would not remarry because of it.

The system changed in 2007 - see

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/10535879/Widows-of-teachers-and-Forces-personnel-could-face-a-cruel-dilemma.html

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2371167

She would not even have the defence that the Administrator failed to act on information she gave - if the pension continued to appear then she should have continued to contact the Administrator until it stopped.

How she repays and how much she repays will come down to negotiation between the Administrator and the person who has Power of Attorney for her?

Paddie01

Thank you both for your prompt replies and attachments - I will pick this up with the administrators

Stevex12345

I was widowed in 2006. My wife was a head teacher and since then I have received a widow's pension. That ceased in August when I remarried. I note that if my first wife had died in 2007 I would be entitled to a widow's pension for life, whether or not I remarried. This doesn't seem fair to me.

kidmugsy

Stevex12345 wrote: »

if my first wife had died in 2007 I would be entitled to a widow's pension for life, whether or not I remarried. This doesn't seem fair to me.

Quite right. All the money needlessly paid out to post-2006 widows and widowers should immediately be reclaimed by the Exchequer. That would impose fairness and help reduce the National Debt.

PensionTech

Just one thing to add:

If she reported it at the time, then they can only reclaim the last six years' worth of overpayments - not the whole ten. However, it sounds like it won't be easy to find out whether she did report it or not. The only thing you could do there is make a subject access request under the Data Protection Act to have her correspondence file sent to you so that you can check through it yourself. (They are legally obliged to do this - but can charge you £10 or so admin fees.)

Smithy_02

Can I ask Paddie for an update on the line the Teachers Pension organisation is/has taken. I also receive a widower’s pension from them. My reason for asking is appear to now have the same problem as your mother had with tem. I informed them of remarriage in 1999 but proving that may be difficult. Last month I received a circular from them asking if I had remarried. Thinking nothing of it I replied saying yes. It now looks like I may be wrong in my understanding that the teacher’s pension followed the changes made to the other local government pensions schemes. Since 1998 the others continue to pay the pension post re-marriage but it looks like the teachers one only changed in 2007

I the letter from the Teachers Pension they say it’s a requirement that they are informed of remarriage but then say “we understand that for the vast majority of those receiving a dependants pension this will not be the case”. I have now received a latter from them wanting me to repay the pension received for the last 17 years. I can understand why they may stop the pension but to want repayment of all the money when they acknowledge that the vast majority do not inform them of remarriage puts people in a very difficult position, which they have knowingly allowed to develop.

Any ideas as to a fair way around the problem?

bigadaj

Smithy_02 wrote: »

Can I ask Paddie for an update on the line the Teachers Pension organisation is/has taken. I also receive a widower’s pension from them. My reason for asking is appear to now have the same problem as your mother had with tem. I informed them of remarriage in 1999 but proving that may be difficult. Last month I received a circular from them asking if I had remarried. Thinking nothing of it I replied saying yes. It now looks like I may be wrong in my understanding that the teacher’s pension followed the changes made to the other local government pensions schemes. Since 1998 the others continue to pay the pension post re-marriage but it looks like the teachers one only changed in 2007

I the letter from the Teachers Pension they say it’s a requirement that they are informed of remarriage but then say “we understand that for the vast majority of those receiving a dependants pension this will not be the case”. I have now received a latter from them wanting me to repay the pension received for the last 17 years. I can understand why they may stop the pension but to want repayment of all the money when they acknowledge that the vast majority do not inform them of remarriage puts people in a very difficult position, which they have knowingly allowed to develop.

Any ideas as to a fair way around the problem?

Think you've misinterpreted the line you've quoted, this seems to refer to the fact that the majority of people they send letters to won't have remarried.

You need to contact them and explain your situation, if money needs to be repaid then you will need to agree what you can reasonably afford and set up a payment plan at a certain amount per week or month.

xylophone

I informed them of remarriage in 1999 but proving that may be difficult.

You informed then because you knew that the widow's pension ceased on remarriage?

The pension continued to be paid but you didn't query it?

PensionTech

I informed them of remarriage in 1999 but proving that may be difficult.

How did you inform them? Over the phone or in writing?

I am guessing that they don't have any record of you telling them - otherwise it would be remarkably unfair for them not to acknowledge it - but you could follow the same advice as I gave Paddie01 above and make a subject access request so that they send you all of the information they have about you on file. You can then see whether they have any record that corroborates your memory of having informed them - which will greatly help your case.

Another thought: did you change your name upon remarriage, and if so, have they been corresponding with you via your new name? This might also be a good indicator.