Pension Beneficiary

iainmac13

Hi , looking for some advice.

My gran and papa had been living together for 35+ years but not married.When my papa passed away according to private pension my gran is not the beneficiary as they weren’t married.The pension has no beneficiary. 

I am trying to find out if this is correct as I find it hard to believe that a marriage certificate at a small cost would make my gran the beneficiary. Any help would be appreciated.

Malthusian

If this is a defined benefit (e.g. final salary) pension the trustees may well be correct. Some DB pensions will pay a spouse's pension to cohabitating partners but it depends on the scheme rules and the trustees' discretion.

If this is what has happened, it wouldn't hurt to explain your grandmother's situation and ask the trustees to reconsider. But they may still say no. If the scheme rules say that only spouses are eligible for survivor's pensions, they can't just ignore the rules without affecting the interests of all the other members of the scheme.

If it was a defined contribution pension the trustees would have to pay out the remaining fund to somebody, but I'll stop there, as "has no beneficiary" suggests it isn't.

I am trying to find out if this is correct as I find it hard to believe that a marriage certificate at a small cost would make my gran the beneficiary.

It's the binding legal committment to combine their finances that would have made her the beneficiary. Not the piece of paper.

You can't retain the advantages of being single for 35 years (e.g. the ability to walk away from the relationship at any time and keep assets in your name) and then say "actually I want to be treated as married now" the moment that being single becomes disadvantageous. Sorry for your loss and I do sympathise if she is now regretting not getting married, but they presumably had their reasons and it's spilt milk.

dunstonh

I find it hard to believe that a marriage certificate at a small cost would make my gran the beneficiary. 

A lot of things rely on marriage or civil partnership for them to continue with a spouse or have spousal benefit.

Marcon

iainmac13 said:

Hi , looking for some advice.

My gran and papa had been living together for 35+ years but not married.When my papa passed away according to private pension my gran is not the beneficiary as they weren’t married.The pension has no beneficiary. 

I am trying to find out if this is correct as I find it hard to believe that a marriage certificate at a small cost would make my gran the beneficiary. Any help would be appreciated.

It's not the marriage certificate that matters - it's the rules of the particular pension scheme. Some provide a discretion (choice) for the trustees to pay a spouse's pension to someone with whom the deceased scheme member was living at the time of death in 'a relationship akin to marriage' or some similar wording; others have rules which quite simply specify that a pension is payable to a spouse or civil partner with no such discretion. I'm afraid it sounds as if the latter applies here.

In case it helps anyone else reading this thread, there are often restrictions in DB schemes where 'death bed' marriages are concerned - in other words, if the partners marry shortly before the scheme member dies (6 months is typical), it can impact on whether a pension is payable at all, and even if it is, how much.