Are they savings?

sheramber

Do you mean that your wife claimed child benefit so got NIC for that?

However, that only covers her for the years she was entitled to them. She will have no credits for later years.

You can check her NIC record to see if she how many years she has

https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record

Pixelat0r

Can't recall how it broke down, I just recall she was 12 months short of her 30 years threshold so we transferred a year of credits from the daughter whose kids she was looking after.

SkyeKnight

Pixelat0r wrote: »

Can't recall how it broke down, I just recall she was 12 months short of her 30 years threshold so we transferred a year of credits from the daughter whose kids she was looking after.

She needs 35 now to get a full pension.

[Deleted User]

Pixelat0r wrote: »

But I was no better off had I kept them alive because they classed them as savings so disqualified me from housing help and income based ESA. Had I paid the endowment money directly to the building society I would be in real trouble with no realistic way to pay the mortgage next March. I appear to have shot myself in the foot by trying to make up a shortfall that, while not huge to some people, is a ridiculously large percentage short of the supposed surrender value. My decision to try to reduce this large shortfall by investing it wisely has saved me a few hundred off the shortfall and now looks likely to cost me my house.

It's because I couldn't afford to pay the interest on the mortgage and all the other outgoings that I was left with no choice but to surrender them and pay them off the mortgage and reduce the monthly mortgage interest. It wasn't a choice I had, it was the only way I could afford to live.

My daughter is in sixth form and is looking for part time work but we have around three buses per day and none on a Sunday so it's tough for her to find an evening or weekend job. I drive luckily...at the moment.

It has been a all known fact for many years that endowments taken out in the 80s would probably not perform as expected and pay the mortgage off, in fact most if not all lenders would have written to their customers to make this crystal clear.

jellie

Pixelat0r wrote: »

Meanwhile I live opposite an in-law who has never worked, who brags he fooled the incapacity tests, who has a blue badge but never bothered learning to drive, whose partner gets carers allowance yet does literally zero for him as he needs literally zero doing. He's up and down ladders at Christmas putting lights on his house, he's out fishing every chance he gets, he wanders round the town centre for hours on end unaided yet has a brand new council house with full central heating, a leather sofa and a minimum of one foreign holiday every year. Not to mention the regular takeaways, partly funded by the bootleg business run from the garden shed.

Makes you ever so slightly sick

https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

You can also report benefit fraud by telephone or post.

National Benefit Fraud Hotline (NBFH)
Telephone: 0800 854 440
Textphone: 0800 328 0512
Welsh Telephone: 0800 678 3722
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm

NBFH
PO Box 224
Preston
PR1 1GP

Pixelat0r

We were made aware in the last few years and had been putting a little money away but of course I wasn't banking on losing my job. It's very easy to say "the product you were sold, endorsed by the government of the day wasn't fit for purpose" but dealing with it or getting someone to help or take responsibility for that mis-selling is impossible. I followed the wisdom of the day and am now paying the price.

Pixelat0r

jellie wrote: »

You can also report benefit fraud by telephone or post.

National Benefit Fraud Hotline (NBFH)
Telephone: 0800 854 440
Textphone: 0800 328 0512
Welsh Telephone: 0800 678 3722
Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm

NBFH
PO Box 224
Preston
PR1 1GP

Apparently others have already done it, supported by photos. And a raid for bootlegging DVDs yet no action has been taken. He must be sleeping with the chief of police or the head of DWP. They're too busy hunting down people who play by the rules.

NeilCr

How did you get the advice you referred to in the OP? Was it in writing, face to face, on the phone? And was it from CAB, the building society and/or any of the other sources?

[Deleted User]

Pixelat0r wrote: »

We were made aware in the last few years and had been putting a little money away but of course I wasn't banking on losing my job. It's very easy to say "the product you were sold, endorsed by the government of the day wasn't fit for purpose" but dealing with it or getting someone to help or take responsibility for that mis-selling is impossible. I followed the wisdom of the day and am now paying the price.

We and our first endowment mortgage and our second in the 1980s never considered it to be endorsed by the government, in fact at the time they were a great tool for paying off mortgages until around 2000 when the stock market reached its peak and has never recovered since.
Like all investments what can go up can also go down.

Pixelat0r

venison wrote: »

We and our first endowment mortgage and our second in the 1980s never considered it to be endorsed by the government, in fact at the time they were a great tool for paying off mortgages until around 2000 when the stock market reached its peak and has never recovered since.
Like all investments what can go up can also go down.

It was never really sold to me as an investment, it was sold as a means to an end with no risk attached and the fact sheet I received from the financial advisor I used outlining the benefits from tax breaks (later repealed) and advantages of the mighty endowment mortgage , was written by a government body. Either way, I can't correct what happened but to be penalised now as well as being stung then seems a little unfair. I took action to deal with the shortfall without grumbling (OK, maybe I grumbled a bit) but to now be handicapped for having taken that action stinks in my honest opinion.