Confused about pension credit

isayhello

Hi, My dad is going to get his state pension next year and I'm looking into it for him, I found there is an extra benefit he can get called a pension credit and he's eligible for the guarantee part of it.

How is this amount affected? does anyone have any experience of this? does the fact that he might have some savings mean he won't get anything? he's got a lot of NI years so hopefully will get the full state pension and he's married, so trying to understand whether he's able to get the £243 couples amount.

Thanks

stoozie1

You may find more people able to help with this on the benefits board.

Pollycat

isayhello wrote: »

Hi, My dad is going to get his state pension next year and I'm looking into it for him, I found there is an extra benefit he can get called a pension credit and he's eligible for the guarantee part of it.

How is this amount affected? does anyone have any experience of this? does the fact that he might have some savings mean he won't get anything? he's got a lot of NI years so hopefully will get the full state pension and he's married, so trying to understand whether he's able to get the £243 couples amount.

Thanks

Pension Credit tops up income to £243.25 per week (for a couple), that's not the amount of benefit you get.
So your parents' joint income has to be less that £243.25 per week to qualify for the guaranteed part of Pension Credit.

Savings over £10k are taken into account.
Have you looked at this?
https://www.gov.uk/pension-credit
There's a calculator that you can put your parents' income into to see what they are likely to get.

molerat

isayhello wrote: »

he's got a lot of NI years so hopefully will get the full state pension

Get a forecast and check. Having "a lot of NI years" is no guarantee of a full pension. Conversly he could be getting over the pension credit limit. No point in guessing. https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

xylophone

You should read this comprehensive Factsheet from AgeUK.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs48_pension_credit_fcs.pdf