Voluntary class 3 payments

Twi6

I think the guide is great and everybody and his wife appear to be encouraging people to buy top up payments for their State Pension, however, nobody appears to be aware of the MASSIVE backlog of payments waiting to be processed at the DWP.  There's no mention of wait times in any article's I've read.  I think there should be some sort of reference to timescales in your guide.  In some cases it has taken nearly a year to receive an update of state pension payments after paying tens of thousands of pounds to the DWP and no way of finding out what's happened  unless you contact the press.  Its just not right.

Silvertabby

I paid 4 years of voluntary Class 3s in two instalments last year, and each took about 6 weeks to show on my records.

I think the trick is to do everything on line, including making payment (after receiving a reference over the phone) by bank transfer.

There have been some horror stories about paper applications/cheques festering in someone's in-tray for months due to covid/working from home.

ADD.  If you mean paying voluntary contributions AFTER you have started to draw your State pension, then that's a whole new ball game.  That means having to manually unpick the existing pension, updating it, then (presumably) having the calculations checked by a supervisor.  If it's anything like the LGPS, and the choice lay between updating a pension already in payment or commencing payments for 6 new pensioners....then it's a matter of priorities, I'm afraid.  

Twi6

All sounds very 1970's to me, I managed to do it in 10 minutes how much faster it must be with a computer and an abacus😆

Twi6

The HMRC allocated my payment 10 days after I paid it, and advised the DWP that day, my Ni record was also updated  at the same time.  Allocation isn't the problem for me. The DWP is.  IT would appear all the DWP resource is invested in clearing the historic women's pension underpayment ( that's until someone makes a big enough noise and they are moved onto something else of course).

Silvertabby

Tw16 - 1970s would have been before the introduction of GMPs (1978).

The difference between doing LGPS re-calcs with or without GMPs (especially in cases in which GMP age and SPA age differ) is..... huge!

Twi6

I do wonder if people would be better off investing their money for 6 -9 months and getting the interest rather than passing it to the government I'm sure this website could advise if this would be a shrewed move.

Twi6

No problem with my GMP sorted that out years ago.👍

t0rt0ise

You can call them. That's what I did when my pension wasn't correct after paying for NI. I called the number on the pensions letter and they gave me another number to call and she checked and got it updated and I then received backpay.