Teachers' Pensions?

missbiggles1

xylophone wrote: »

Have you made a formal complaint?

https://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/public/contact-us/member-complaints-and-appeals.aspx

Only to the manager of the Bereavement Centre, who apologised and at least calculated the long term pension for me on the phone.

I'll have a look at that later, thanks.

hyubh

orwen wrote: »

I am due to retire next week but had heard nothing from Teachers' Pensions [TP], so a week ago I wrote them to remind them.

Ultimately it is your responsibility as the member to notify TP that you wish to draw your pension. The TP website recommends prospective retirees contact them three months in advance, and provides the form to complete. [Edit: urgh, xylophone's beaten me to it!]

TP had already sent me a full pension forecast last year.

Presumably this was your annual benefit statement, which TP have to send out to every active member...?

Today I received a raft of forms in the post [Age app / Oct 2015] and why weren't these sent out to me months ago?

They will have been on TP's website.

There's 11 pages to get through and a lot of tricky clauses and sub-clauses with tick boxes to negotiate.

TP will want to get it right, especially as various items will have potential tax implications that they have a statutory duty to get right.

Due to MSE I discovered I retired at 60 instead of 67.

The TPS NPA has never been 67. Did you never have a scheme guide, or look at the TP website? Even the (very recent) alignment to the member's SPA only affects benefits on post-April 2015 service. (Historically the TPS was 60, then 65 more recently with some members protected.)

I was my mother's carer and she suddenly and tragically died early last year, leaving me high and dry. It was considered that mum would live for at least another 10 years (by which time I would have achieved state pension age) but she developed a condition which was not picked up by her GP or indeed the regional hospital which I had been taking mum to for unrelated check-ups.

Sorry to hear of your mother's death. However, you cannot really think TP would be on the lookout for such things. The membership of the TPS is extremely large, and with the best will in the world, whoever administers the scheme (Capita, Mouchel, SPPA, whoever) will not be in the position to offer a personalised service.

The form is ambiguous, I had 'back years' included in my pension scheme while teaching. I left the Local Authority relevant to TP some years ago

Your question is ambiguous ;-) Do you mean you had LGPS membership that you transferred into the TPS, or that your TPS membership was in two parts, or...?

section 5.2 asks for the value of all annual pensions under something called "Lifetime Allowance (assessment)" and I don't know what that is - does it even apply to me?

Yes, to the extent it is a taxation thing applicable to everyone - if you were looking to draw another, non-state pension, the scheme administrator would be asking the same question as TP are now.

I'm wondering if I should take the 11 paged TP form along to a Financial Advisor?

Have you phoned TP up and asked them explicitly to explain it to you?

orwen

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Is there not a teachers union that can provide help with these questions ?

Thanks, I am in fact a member of the NUT but they have been very little use to me as a teacher I am sorry to report.

xylophone

You are a deferred member of the pre 2007 scheme and have no service after 2002 - as far as I can see, there are no flexibilities - you get the automatic lump sum and a monthly pension.

teddysmum

I found sorting mine easy.ie They sent a letter stating my lump some and monthly payments, with nothing to fill in.


However, they messed up my tax, failing to take any, then claiming that they had not received a tax code, yet not knowing the system, I sent them a copy of my notification, besides the one they would have received from HMRC.


HMRC said they had to accept their word; convenient, as it meant I couldn't claim exemption due to a provider failing to act on information.

System

I am sorry Orwen but I find your lack of understanding and assumptions regarding the Teachers Pension Scheme quite astounding.


As a teacher myself I consider it my responsibility to join the TPS website and keep myself fully up to date and informed about my pension. Of course forms have to be filled in and checked. When you apply for a forecast it is just that, a forecast, it is not a retirement/pension application.


I also contest that the forms are too complicated. I suggest you make it your business to get informed about your pension arrangements.


I am sorry to come across as harsh but it never ceases to surprise and disappoint me that professional people can be so naïve and so quick to complain.

orwen

hyubh wrote: »

Ultimately it is your responsibility as the member to notify TP that you wish to draw your pension. The TP website recommends prospective retirees contact them three months in advance, and provides the form to complete(https://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/members/forms/applying-for-retirement.aspx).

Presumably this was your annual benefit statement, which TP have to send out to every active member.

Thanks but no, after help from MSE, I wrote to TP and they returned my forecast, they said nothing about getting back in touch with them in 3 months time or I would have jumped on it.

I have no other other pension that I am currently drawing. TP took over from the Local Authority pension office some time ago. Retiring was not on the horizon a year ago as far as I was concerned, because I was fully occupied with arrangements to care for my mother after my father passed on - all this has come at me all at once I'm afraid. I presumed my 'protected member' status pension would be by default, I did not know about any forms I needed to fill in - there is no mention at all of these forms in the correspondence I had with TP nine months ago.

orwen

xylophone wrote: »

You are a deferred member of the pre 2007 scheme and have no service after 2002 - as far as I can see, there are no flexibilities - you get the automatic lump sum and a monthly pension.

Thank you, this is what I assumed, and hence my perplexity at receiving eleven pages of forms to fill in. I need to get that TP form back to them ASAP with a covering letter.

orwen

excelpaul wrote: »

it never ceases to surprise and disappoint me that professional people can be so naïve and so quick to complain.

I will refer you to Post 11, and am here requesting advice. Thank you.

orwen

teddysmum wrote: »

I found sorting mine easy.ie They sent a letter stating my lump some and monthly payments, with nothing to fill in.

That's exactly what they sent me - and with nothing to fill in. Now I get an 11 page form and am blind with panic with just days to go before my retirement. Perhaps there's still time to collapse before I even get to my retirement, that will save all the form-filling in? :mad: