Confused of North East

penpot24

I checked my pension forecast and found out I had a small COPE amount of £1:36 per week! This means I was contracted out at some point which I could not remember. I emailed the Local Government Pensions; just eliminating some employers from my early years, to which I gratefully received a reply, which left me more perplexed. They replied that I had a pension with them for one year, but that it is now in a no liability status, and thus I do not have a pension with them! They advised me to contact a financial advisor. What on earth does this mean? Please help.

Linton

penpot24 said:

I checked my pension forecast and found out I had a small COPE amount of £1:36 per week! This means I was contracted out at some point which I could not remember. I emailed the Local Government Pensions; just eliminating some employers from my early years, to which I gratefully received a reply, which left me more perplexed. They replied that I had a pension with them for one year, but that it is now in a no liability status, and thus I do not have a pension with them! They advised me to contact a financial advisor. What on earth does this mean? Please help.

I dont know about "no liability" status but assume that it means you arent due a pension becuse you werent a member of the scheme for long enough.

However you could still have been contracted out of SERPs for a while which could lead to COPE.

Silvertabby

penpot24 said:

I checked my pension forecast and found out I had a small COPE amount of £1:36 per week! This means I was contracted out at some point which I could not remember. I emailed the Local Government Pensions; just eliminating some employers from my early years, to which I gratefully received a reply, which left me more perplexed. They replied that I had a pension with them for one year, but that it is now in a no liability status, and thus I do not have a pension with them! They advised me to contact a financial advisor. What on earth does this mean? Please help.

'No liability' means that you had a pension record, of some sort, in the past.  However, it no longer a valid record because you either took a refund of your contributions when you left, or you transferred your benefits to another pension scheme.

No point in contacting a financial advisor - only your LGPS can see what actually happened.

Speaking as a retired LGPS advisor, my money is on you taking - or being automatically paid the refund when you left.  What exactly do you mean by 'your early years'?  If that was back in the 1970s, and if you were under 26 when you left, then your only option would have been the refund, which would have been paid (cheque to your home address) without you even needing to ask for it.

That said, if you did receive a refund then your LGPS should have cancelled the COPE by paying your NI rebate to HMRC thus putting you back into the State 2nd pension scheme for this period.  It's unlikely that such a small amount will make a difference to your eventual State pension, but it could and so therefore needs checking out. 

penpot24

Thank you for your comment Linton. I do not know what it means either, apart from that I have no pension with them. Yes, about SERPS. It is such a small amount, but I still want to find out.

penpot24

Thank you Silver Tabby for your reply. I might have took a refund, I cannot remember, but I definitely did not transfer. The year in question was 1993-1994, they said, which puts me at 37 years young then! So I think I can safely say this is not my COPE amount provider at least.

Silvertabby

penpot24 said:

Thank you Silver Tabby for your reply. I might have took a refund, I cannot remember, but I definitely did not transfer. The year in question was 1993-1994, they said, which puts me at 37 years young then! So I think I can safely say this is not my COPE amount provider at least.

Back then, the vesting period (the amount of membership you needed to actually qualify for pension benefits) was 2 years, so you never had actual pension rights.

Your only options would have been a transfer out or a refund of your own contributions, and it sounds like you did go for the refund option.

When that was paid, your LGPS should have paid over your NI rebate to HMRC, thus wiping out your COPE and putting you back into SERPS for this period.  However..............

Again, drawing on my 20 years as a LGPS administrator, this could impossible to resolve now.  I had many cases such as yours in which the member took a refund, as a result of which the NI rebate would be paid over to HMRC.  I don't know how all LGPS' did this, but we made payment on a monthly basis by sending HMRC a list of names, NI numbers, NI rebate amount, relevant dates, and a cheque for the total amount.  It was then up to HMRC to transfer this information to the individual NI records.......

When querying cases such as yours, very often many years later, I would write to HMRC stating that we had paid £X in respect of Mrs  X on XX/XX/XXX and asking them to re-instate her into SERPS for that period.  They would just come back asking for a copy of the original multi list, the cheque number and amount of the total payment, and date the cheque was cashed.  Unless I could supply that information they couldn't/wouldn't take any further action in respect of this matter.  Accounts didn't keep such records for that length of time so that, unfortunately, was that.

Fingers crossed for you that with such a tiny COPE your State pension amount won't be affected.

Albermarle

They advised me to contact a financial advisor.

It is standard response so they can absolve themselves of any responsibility. It would take a lot of £1.36's to pay a financial advisor !

penpot24

Albermarle said:

They advised me to contact a financial advisor.

It is standard response so they can absolve themselves of any responsibility. It would take a lot of £1.36's to pay a financial advisor !

Quite! I thought it a rather odd answer.

barnstar2077

penpot24 said:

Albermarle said:

They advised me to contact a financial advisor.

It is standard response so they can absolve themselves of any responsibility. It would take a lot of £1.36's to pay a financial advisor !

Quite! I thought it a rather odd answer.

Perhaps the person meant that if you do not understand then a financial advisor would be able to explain it to you.  They may not have necessarily thought it would be helpful in any other way.

penpot24

Silvertabby said:

penpot24 said:

Thank you Silver Tabby for your reply. I might have took a refund, I cannot remember, but I definitely did not transfer. The year in question was 1993-1994, they said, which puts me at 37 years young then! So I think I can safely say this is not my COPE amount provider at least.

Back then, the vesting period (the amount of membership you needed to actually qualify for pension benefits) was 2 years, so you never had actual pension rights.

Your only options would have been a transfer out or a refund of your own contributions, and it sounds like you did go for the refund option.

When that was paid, your LGPS should have paid over your NI rebate to HMRC, thus wiping out your COPE and putting you back into SERPS for this period.  However..............

Again, drawing on my 20 years as a LGPS administrator, this could impossible to resolve now.  I had many cases such as yours in which the member took a refund, as a result of which the NI rebate would be paid over to HMRC.  I don't know how all LGPS' did this, but we made payment on a monthly basis by sending HMRC a list of names, NI numbers, NI rebate amount, relevant dates, and a cheque for the total amount.  It was then up to HMRC to transfer this information to the individual NI records.......

When querying cases such as yours, very often many years later, I would write to HMRC stating that we had paid £X in respect of Mrs  X on XX/XX/XXX and asking them to re-instate her into SERPS for that period.  They would just come back asking for a copy of the original multi list, the cheque number and amount of the total payment, and date the cheque was cashed.  Unless I could supply that information they couldn't/wouldn't take any further action in respect of this matter.  Accounts didn't keep such records for that length of time so that, unfortunately, was that.

Fingers crossed for you that with such a tiny COPE your State pension amount won't be affected.

Thank you Silver Tabby for that very detailed and concise explanation. Now on my detailed NI list, I have a full year paid for that year. The thing that is bugging me is where has this COPE amount come from? But you have totally eased my mind on the fact that I must have it refunded. (It was Lancashire by the way where I worked at this time.) Thank you one again, for taking the time to reply and allay any concerns and confusions I had. xx (I don't know why this was posted earlier, I thought I had replied.)

xylophone

 I have a full year paid for that year. 

Full year (qualifying year) does not indicate that it was a contracted in year or indeed that it was a contracted out year.

Contracting in or out related only to SERPS/S2P, not to the basic State Pension.

Thus, whether or not you were contracted out, you had a full (qualifying) year if in the tax year (April to April)  you  paid/  were treated as having paid/ were credited with enough National Insurance Contributions (NICs) to make that year qualify towards a Basic State Pension.

If you have a COPE, then at some point you were "contracted out" of SERPS/S2P.

An SAR may provide an indication.

See links here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79314997/#Comment_79314997