My late fathers pension help required

JustRi

Hi, I’m looking for some advice from you kind people.

My father took out a private pension sometime in the late 70’s or early 80’s. He didn’t pay into it for long and he didn’t keep financial records or even have a bank account, so when he died at 62 in 1992 we couldn’t find any record of his pension and promptly forgot about it.

Out of the blue, 15 years later in 2007 my sister gets a letter from the department of works and pension (I believe) that they (the pension company) have been trying to chase his relatives.

At the time I couldn’t actually believe that it took them 15 years to do this when myself and my brother had only lived at one address after leaving home, and my sister had lived at more than 15 addresses and had 2 name changed due to marriage !

My sister phoned them up on receipt of the letter and said our mother was still alive and gave them her address.

They sent communication to our mother regarding the pension, but my mother was very ill at the time and didn’t respond to them and died several weeks later.

This was the last we even thought about it until my husband uncovered a box of my mother’s papers and letters from our attic.

I have the letter they sent my mother in 2007. I was wondering where we stand. Do you think it’s possible that we (my sister, brother and myself) can claim his pension pot, or is it lost forever ? My father nor my mother got the chance to claim it. Would it also make a difference that my parents were divorced before my father died ?

Any help would be appreciated

GDB2222

JustRi wrote: »

Hi, I’m looking for some advice from you kind people.

My father took out a private pension sometime in the late 70’s or early 80’s. He didn’t pay into it for long and he didn’t keep financial records or even have a bank account, so when he died at 62 in 1992 we couldn’t find any record of his pension and promptly forgot about it.

Out of the blue, 15 years later in 2007 my sister gets a letter from the department of works and pension (I believe) that they (the pension company) have been trying to chase his relatives.

At the time I couldn’t actually believe that it took them 15 years to do this when myself and my brother had only lived at one address after leaving home, and my sister had lived at more than 15 addresses and had 2 name changed due to marriage !

My sister phoned them up on receipt of the letter and said our mother was still alive and gave them her address.

They sent communication to our mother regarding the pension, but my mother was very ill at the time and didn’t respond to them and died several weeks later.

This was the last we even thought about it until my husband uncovered a box of my mother’s papers and letters from our attic.

I have the letter they sent my mother in 2007. I was wondering where we stand. Do you think it’s possible that we (my sister, brother and myself) can claim his pension pot, or is it lost forever ? My father nor my mother got the chance to claim it. Would it also make a difference that my parents were divorced before my father died ?

Any help would be appreciated

Just write to the pension firm and ask them these questions. Check their current address, of course.

Dox

If your dates are correct in terms of when your father took out the pension, it will have been something known as a Retirement Annuity Contract (personal pensions didn't come in until July 1988), aka S226 policies - so don't worry if that's the terminology you are seeing on the paperwork.

The pension provider will be able to confirm the terms of the policy, so as the previous answer suggests, write to them and ask. If you have time to come back and update this thread with the answer, that would be great!