gaps in my national insurance records due to living in Europe

shortcircuitbob

Hello all,
I am coming up to my 66th birthday and having checked my forecast online I see that the 13 years that I was a Dutch resident are marked as unpaid years on my UK record. When I called the Gov help desk I was told to pay the missing UK years as voluntary payments, some several thousand pounds in total. I don't have that kind of cash spare and I feel it is a bit unfair having to pay it again. Has anybody else been through this experience? Thanks in advance. 

xylophone

https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/living-and-working-overseas.

Did you speak to the International Pension Centre?

molerat

Why do you think you wiold be "paying it again" ?  Were you paying UK NI whilst living in NL ?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

shortcircuitbob said:

Hello all,
I am coming up to my 66th birthday and having checked my forecast online I see that the 13 years that I was a Dutch resident are marked as unpaid years on my UK record. When I called the Gov help desk I was told to pay the missing UK years as voluntary payments, some several thousand pounds in total. I don't have that kind of cash spare and I feel it is a bit unfair having to pay it again. Has anybody else been through this experience? Thanks in advance. 

Do these 13 years actually impact your State Pension amount?

What does your forecast show, the full details not just the headline figure?

maisie_cat

Does the 13 years in the Dutch system entitle you to a Dutch pension?

eastcorkram

As others have mentioned, I guess it depends on whether or not you paid any NI or equivalent, into the Dutch system. If so, then I would have thought that either entitles you to a pro rata pension from there, OR using those years to make up the missing UK ones. 
Though as you don't mention work, maybe you lived there for 13 years without working. 

woolly_wombat

How much less than the new State Pension is your forecast?

You may well not be required to make NI back payments for the full 13 years.

Are you still working? If so then bear in mind that the forecast will not include NI payments/credits for 2021/22.

nigelbb

eastcorkram said:

As others have mentioned, I guess it depends on whether or not you paid any NI or equivalent, into the Dutch system. If so, then I would have thought that either entitles you to a pro rata pension from there, OR using those years to make up the missing UK ones. 
Though as you don't mention work, maybe you lived there for 13 years without working. 

Contributions in the EU never make up missing UK contributions. The only time that EU contributions will be taken into account is if you are short of the 10 years of contributions necessary for a minimum UK pension & even then they don't make the pension amount larger just enable you to have a pro rata pension eg 7 years NI contributions + at least 3 years EU contributions gives you 7/10 of a minimum UK pension.

Brie

nigelbb said:

eastcorkram said:

As others have mentioned, I guess it depends on whether or not you paid any NI or equivalent, into the Dutch system. If so, then I would have thought that either entitles you to a pro rata pension from there, OR using those years to make up the missing UK ones. 
Though as you don't mention work, maybe you lived there for 13 years without working. 

Contributions in the EU never make up missing UK contributions. The only time that EU contributions will be taken into account is if you are short of the 10 years of contributions necessary for a minimum UK pension & even then they don't make the pension amount larger just enable you to have a pro rata pension eg 7 years NI contributions gives you 7/10 of a minimum pension.

In which case why does the SP website talk about using your pension contributions to foreign governments to top up your UK pension?  Or is that just for reciprocal countries outside of the EU?

p00hsticks

Brie said:

nigelbb said:

eastcorkram said:

As others have mentioned, I guess it depends on whether or not you paid any NI or equivalent, into the Dutch system. If so, then I would have thought that either entitles you to a pro rata pension from there, OR using those years to make up the missing UK ones. 
Though as you don't mention work, maybe you lived there for 13 years without working. 

Contributions in the EU never make up missing UK contributions. The only time that EU contributions will be taken into account is if you are short of the 10 years of contributions necessary for a minimum UK pension & even then they don't make the pension amount larger just enable you to have a pro rata pension eg 7 years NI contributions gives you 7/10 of a minimum pension.

In which case why does the SP website talk about using your pension contributions to foreign governments to top up your UK pension?  Or is that just for reciprocal countries outside of the EU?

Pwrhas they are referring to the fact that if you make contributions to another countries pension system, then you may qualify for a pension from that country on top of what you get from the UK system ?

nigelbb

Brie said:

nigelbb said:

eastcorkram said:

As others have mentioned, I guess it depends on whether or not you paid any NI or equivalent, into the Dutch system. If so, then I would have thought that either entitles you to a pro rata pension from there, OR using those years to make up the missing UK ones. 
Though as you don't mention work, maybe you lived there for 13 years without working. 

Contributions in the EU never make up missing UK contributions. The only time that EU contributions will be taken into account is if you are short of the 10 years of contributions necessary for a minimum UK pension & even then they don't make the pension amount larger just enable you to have a pro rata pension eg 7 years NI contributions gives you 7/10 of a minimum pension.

In which case why does the SP website talk about using your pension contributions to foreign governments to top up your UK pension?  Or is that just for reciprocal countries outside of the EU?

I cannot find any such statement here just a reference to possibly receiving a foreign state pension if you worked abroad. It also explains in more detail below the example that I discussed earlier where you have less than the 10 years NI contributions required for a minimum UK pension.

Your UK State Pension will be based on your UK National Insurance record. You need 10 years of UK National Insurance contributions to be eligible for the new State Pension.

You may be able to use time spent abroad to make up the 10 qualifying years. This is most likely if you’ve lived or worked in:

• the EEA
• Switzerland
• Gibraltar
• certain countries that have a social security agreement with the UK

Example

You have 7 qualifying years from the UK on your National Insurance record when you reach State Pension age.

You worked in an EEA country for 16 years and paid contributions to that country’s state pension.

You will meet the minimum qualifying years to get the new State Pension because of the time you worked overseas. Your new State Pension amount will only be based on the 7 years of National Insurance.

https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension/living-and-working-overseas