A pension problem - this can't be right... can it?

saver861

nearlyrich wrote: »

Slightly different circumstances but I stood up to the big P over a joint life insurance policy miss-sold to my parents in the 70's. ....... So different issue but just wanted to say it's worth fighting a big company because each case is small fry to them but to a widow on a limited income a few quid means a lot. I hope you get it sorted without too much distress to your mum.

Another excellent example of standing up to the big boys ..... and gals ... just to be politically correct!!

Too often on these boards there is a defeatist attitude .... and that "there is a mistake so they are entitled to their money". They being the company ....

Yes that might be true .... but how much would be determined after a full and thorough examination and negotiation of the circumstances that brought the situation about.

Another good on ya ....

Fabuleuse

Hi


I know this is a little cheeky given that I've been away from this thread for quite a while, but I wonder if someone would give me an opinion on this letter, which I'm planning on sending as a first shot?


It's taken a while - Mum and I have gone through every piece of paper she has, and what she has relating to this is pretty much nothing, save a few P60s.


So, I'm thinking of replying as follows, to see what they come back with; would you please give me your thoughts / advice? Thanks in advance,


Fabuleuse


*****


I refer to your letter of 21 March 2016 addressed to my mother, Mrs X X, who has given her permission for me to deal with this matter on her behalf (see enclosed letter).


Your letter states that Mrs X has been overpaid in respect of my late father’s pension by the sum of £15,116.49. I find it astonishing that, given that my father died in 2003, this mistake has only just been discovered, and I would like to know further details on how exactly the discovery came about.


I have spoken to my mother at length about this, and as I am sure you can imagine, she is very distressed at the thought of having to find over £15,000 as a result of your company’s mistake.


Together we have gone through all of her paperwork relating to my father’s policy, but unfortunately we have nothing except a few P60s left, as my mother discarded any paperwork that she thought would not be needed again. She distinctly remembers sending letters and a copy of my father’s death certificate to everybody she needed to shortly after my father died in 2003, including to S*n L*fe, who we believe this policy was originally taken out with.


With that in mind, could I ask that you forward to me copies of my father’s file and details of how your overpayment came to light some 13 years after you started to pay my mother?

I look forward to your reply.

AnotherJoe

Fabuleuse wrote: »

Hi


I know this is a little cheeky given that I've been away from this thread for quite a while, but I wonder if someone would give me an opinion on this letter, which I'm planning on sending as a first shot?


It's taken a while - Mum and I have gone through every piece of paper she has, and what she has relating to this is pretty much nothing, save a few P60s.


So, I'm thinking of replying as follows, to see what they come back with; would you please give me your thoughts / advice? Thanks in advance,


Fabuleuse


*****


I refer to your letter of 21 March 2016 addressed to my mother, Mrs X X, who has given her permission for me to deal with this matter on her behalf (see enclosed letter).


Your letter states that Mrs X has been overpaid in respect of my late father’s pension by the sum of £15,116.49. I find it astonishing that, given that my father died in 2003, this mistake has only just been discovered, and I would like to know further details on how exactly the discovery came about.


I have spoken to my mother at length about this, and as I am sure you can imagine, she is very distressed at the thought of having to find over £15,000 as a result of your company’s mistake.


Together we have gone through all of her paperwork relating to my father’s policy, but unfortunately we have nothing except a few P60s left, as my mother discarded any paperwork that she thought would not be needed again. She distinctly remembers sending letters and a copy of my father’s death certificate to everybody she needed to shortly after my father died in 2003, including to S*n L*fe, who we believe this policy was originally taken out with.


With that in mind, could I ask that you forward to me copies of my father’s file and details of how your overpayment came to light some 13 years after you started to pay my mother?

I look forward to your reply.

See my amend final para below

With that in mind, could I ask that you forward to me copies of my father’s file and details of how your overpayment came to light some 13 years after you started to pay my mother a reduced pension, what the calculations are, and why you believe it's either reasonable or legal to reclaim money that was paid so long ago, well after it was spent in the reasonable, expectation it was my mothers. Also this has happened well after any requirement to retain records has elapsed, thus removing any ability to independently check that your facts or calculations are correct.

---

Fwiw as a follow up, I'd be pointing out that this amounts to only one thousand pounds a year and its wholly unreasonable to expect that sum to be reclaimed on a per year basis. Eg last years one thousand, perhaps. Thirteen years ago, sorry but the time to ask for that back has long gone.

Fabuleuse

Oh, good points, AnotherJoe - thank you!

Yes, your final para is much stronger than mine, I'll go with it and see what they come back with.

I've had such very good advice from everyone here, I've cut and posted everyone's posts and saved into another document, ready for the pertinent points to be used if necessary.

Thank you all; I'll be back with updates - hopefully positive ones!

Fabuleuse

xylophone

One of them who has been sending money to Mum on a monthly basis has just written her a letter saying oops, sorry, we've been overpaying you because we didn't know your husband was dead,

Does your mother have a letter from FL acknowledging receipt of your father's death certificate and showing the calculation of her widow's pension?

That's a very good point, Xylophone, I'll ask her to dig out any relevant paperwork. Although, I think the fact that correspondence began to be addressed just to her does rather suggest that they knew...

The reason given by "A" was weak but

if your mother had the letter of acknowledgement and pension calculation

it would give you proof of receipt and details of the formula used for the widow's pension.

Together we have gone through all of her paperwork relating to my father’s policy, but unfortunately we have nothing except a few P60s left, as my mother discarded any paperwork that she thought would not be needed again. She distinctly remembers sending letters and a copy of my father’s death certificate to everybody she needed to shortly after my father died in 2003, including to S*n L*fe, who we believe this policy was originally taken out with.

People's memories can be faulty - I would not say this.

Incidentally, do you mean S....L or F....L?

My suspicion is that the death certificate was received and your father's death noted but the clerk who dealt with the matter either omitted to calculate the widow's pension due under the policy or calculated the pension but forgot to enter it into the computer.

If my guess is correct, this would explain why your mother receives the pension (which is correct) but at the rate which would have been payable to your father (which clearly isn't).

I imagine that there has been some kind of audit exercise which has thrown up the error.

The position seems to be then that the company was advised of your father's death, and therefore had the information required to make the payment correctly.

Your mother had no reason to suppose that the payment was not correct.

It has taken the company thirteen years to discover the error.

An analogy with ESC 19?

https://www.gov.uk/tax-appeals/hmrc-dont-act-on-information

zagfles

I presume the P60's you mention are in your mother's name? In which case it's proof that they didn't think they were actually paying your late father, so this is worth mentioning.

As the pension was taken out by your father, what possible reason would they have for paying your mother, other than a widow's pension? So the "we didn't know he'd died" sounds like rubbish. They clearly did know, but sounds like they screwed up by either paying a widow's pension when they shouldn't have eg it was a single life policy, or paying the widow's pension but at the wrong rate.

ISTR a similar case to this where not only didn't the widow have to repay, but the insurance company were required to continue paying her!! Because she'd adjusted her circumstances to become reliant on the income which she reasonably expected to continue for the rest of her life!

EternallyGrateful

Fabuleuse wrote: »

Hi


I know this is a little cheeky given that I've been away from this thread for quite a while, but I wonder if someone would give me an opinion on this letter, which I'm planning on sending as a first shot?


It's taken a while - Mum and I have gone through every piece of paper she has, and what she has relating to this is pretty much nothing, save a few P60s.


So, I'm thinking of replying as follows, to see what they come back with; would you please give me your thoughts / advice? Thanks in advance,


Fabuleuse


*****


I refer to your letter of 21 March 2016 addressed to my mother, Mrs X X, who has given her permission for me to deal with this matter on her behalf (see enclosed letter).


Your letter states that Mrs X has been overpaid in respect of my late father’s pension by the sum of £15,116.49. I find it astonishing that, given that my father died in 2003, this mistake has only just been discovered, and I would like to know further details on how exactly the discovery came about.


I have spoken to my mother at length about this, and as I am sure you can imagine, she is very distressed at the thought of having to find over £15,000 as a result of your company’s mistake.


Together we have gone through all of her paperwork relating to my father’s policy, but unfortunately we have nothing except a few P60s left, as my mother discarded any paperwork that she thought would not be needed again. She distinctly remembers sending letters and a copy of my father’s death certificate to everybody she needed to shortly after my father died in 2003, including to S*n L*fe, who we believe this policy was originally taken out with.


With that in mind, could I ask that you forward to me copies of my father’s file and details of how your overpayment came to light some 13 years after you started to pay my mother?

I look forward to your reply.

Personally I wouldn't say that much.

Say that your mother is distressed because there's no way she can pay the £15000 back. I would make no further comment.

I would not mention discarding paperwork. I would just say that they were advised of his death and sent a copy of the death certificate in 2003. So if your mother was paid in error it's their error and an error that would not have been obvious to any recipient.

Other than that I would ask for proof of what they are saying which will have to be in the form of original files such that your financial adviser can review them. I would also ask that they contribute to the cost of the adviser.

Don't say anything at all that they will be able to use against you.

Fabuleuse

Ok, more good points. I've tweaked the letter to take out the bit about discarding paperwork.


To clarify, the policy was taken out with S*n L*fe, then this changed to A*a, and now Mum is being chased by Fr**nds L*fe. The P60s are in Dads name (I'm not sure what difference this makes - sorry), and Mum said that the account that the money is paid into is in her sole name - presumably at some point they would have changed their payment records from Dad's bank to Mum's, which further proves that they must have realised, or at the very least should have queried why they suddenly weren't paying the person who the policy belonged to.

zagfles

Fabuleuse wrote: »

Ok, more good points. I've tweaked the letter to take out the bit about discarding paperwork.


To clarify, the policy was taken out with S*n L*fe, then this changed to A*a, and now Mum is being chased by Fr**nds L*fe. The P60s are in Dads name (I'm not sure what difference this makes - sorry), and Mum said that the account that the money is paid into is in her sole name - presumably at some point they would have changed their payment records from Dad's bank to Mum's, which further proves that they must have realised, or at the very least should have queried why they suddenly weren't paying the person who the policy belonged to.

You said all correspondence was sent to your Mum? Did they really send a P60 in your Dad's name to your Mum?

The P60 shows who they think they were paying more than the bank account - as I think the account name is only a cross check, sort code and account number are the important bits. The P60 is used for tax records etc, it's odd that HMRC didn't flag that they have an active PAYE record for someone they know is deceased.

WillowCat

Was the bank account always in mum's sole name? Could it have been a joint account until dad's death at which point the bank took his name off?

The name on the P60 is relevant, as a widow's pension would have a P60 in her name as it is her income. Income in his name would form part of his estate. There is no personal allowance to set against income received after death so the really bad news is that tax should have been paid on the pension.

Does your mum declare the income on her tax return?