Transfer of child benefit NI credits: can in be backdated?

sheramber

Would  his wife br covered by this?

A person who has been given leave to enter, or remain in, the UK by the Secretary of State upon an undertaking by another person or persons pursuant to the immigration rules within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971, to be responsible for his maintenance and accommodation is, for the purposes of child benefit, treated as a person who is not subject to immigration control and not excluded from entitlement.

These people are referred to as ‘a sponsored immigrant’.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/child-benefit-technical-manual/cbtm10140

OhWow

sheramber said:

Would  his wife br covered by this?

A person who has been given leave to enter, or remain in, the UK by the Secretary of State upon an undertaking by another person or persons pursuant to the immigration rules within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971, to be responsible for his maintenance and accommodation is, for the purposes of child benefit, treated as a person who is not subject to immigration control and not excluded from entitlement.

These people are referred to as ‘a sponsored immigrant’.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/child-benefit-technical-manual/cbtm10140

No. The OPs wife was on an LLR (Limited leave to Remain) visa with No Recourse to Public Funds and therefore subject to immigration control. She could only have public funds (in this case Child Benefit) when she had been granted ILR. A maintenance undertaking is not needed for a dependent of a work visa, or for a spouse visa, or student visa etc.

A maintenace undertaking is usually used for an adult dependent visa under the UK immigration rules (very hard to get visa now). Some of these are granted ILR, instead of LLR. Normally ILR means they can have UK Public Funds but to get this visa for their parents, the sponsor has to sign a sponsorship undertaking stating they will keep them. This is what the sponosr has to sign

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/270308/sponsorship-form.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1013601/public-funds-v18.pdf

Page 18

Maintenance undertakings
A maintenance undertaking is a written agreement given by a sponsor. It states they
will be responsible for the maintenance and accommodation of a person subject to
immigration control while they are in the UK. It is an offence under the Social
Security Administration Act 1992 for a sponsor not to maintain people who they are
responsible for. If a failure to be maintained by the sponsored person results in a
person claiming contributory based benefits, the benefits may be recovered from the
sponsor.
The Home Office may take appropriate steps to recover amounts from the sponsor
that were provided under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
(support for asylum seekers) to a person being sponsored

For the OP's wife (below) it shows that she could not have Child Benefit (my bold). As a dependent of a work visa holder, she was not subject to a maintenance undertaking, but was subject to immigration control and her visa would have been on the condition of No Recourse to Publc Funds (until she was granted ILR). Child benefit is a Public Fund.

 

Page 17

Child Benefit
The general rule is that no person subject to immigration control is entitled to Child
Benefit (Section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, sub-sections (1) and
(3)). However, a person who falls under one of the following exceptions cannot be
have their Child Benefit claim disallowed or terminated solely on the grounds they
are subject to immigration control.

Exception 1
A person who has been given permission to enter, or stay in, the UK subject to a
maintenance undertaking by another person or persons (pursuant to the Immigration
Rules within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971).

Both the OP (who had also been a visa holder) and his wfe, would know what the No Recourse to Public Funds condition, written on her BRP card (visa), means. As a dependent of a work visa holder, she was allowed to work but was not allowed Public Funds.

OhWow

TELLIT01 said:

There have been no payments made to the wife - so far.  She will eventually reach State Pension age and may receive more than she is entitled to if she has been given 6 years NI credits erroneously.

I suspect that a wrong decision has been made, possibly because staff are working with less supervision due to Covid and WFH.  Will that error ever be noticed?  Possibly not.

It might be a silly risk to take too. She only needs 35 years for a full UK state pension and could build her own contributions up lawfully before she reached age 68. It could be a higher SP age by that time, which would give her more years to reach the full state pension.