Widow payment for unmarried partner

clff11

Yes my daughter was in full time education and was 18 . I was told by child benefit that I would have got child benefit for her up until September 3rd 2018 but cannot get widows allowance because I wasn’t claiming it .

clff11

I saw on the link posted above that you only have to be eligible not actually claiming but HMRC don’t seem to acknowledge that . Has anyone else had this issue ?

poppy12345

clff11 said:

Yes my daughter was in full time education and was 18 . I was told by child benefit that I would have got child benefit for her up until September 3rd 2018 but cannot get widows allowance because I wasn’t claiming it .

When did she leave full time education?

peteuk

poppy12345 said:

clff11 said:

Yes my daughter was in full time education and was 18 . I was told by child benefit that I would have got child benefit for her up until September 3rd 2018 but cannot get widows allowance because I wasn’t claiming it .

When did she leave full time education?

And what was she studying? 

sheramber

clff11 said:

Yes my daughter was in full time education and was 18 . I was told by child benefit that I would have got child benefit for her up until September 3rd 2018 but cannot get widows allowance because I wasn’t claiming it .

Why were you not claiming it?

3rd September is an odd date

When approved education or training ends

When your child leaves approved education or training, payments will stop at the end of February, 31 May, 31 August or 30 November (whichever comes first).

HMRC will not know you were eligible but not claiming. They can only check claims.

This revealed the problems of where the other partner claimed the benefit or no claim was made due to high income benefit charge.

***

To help you we need understand why you were not claiming

And 

Whether the information given  that you were eligible to 3rd September is correct,

That depends on what full time non advanced education your daughter was studying and when her course finished.

clff11

Thanks for the replies so far

Update on this . 

I just called hmrc again and was spoken to by someone who explained something I did not realise . 

Claims can only be backdated to 31aug 2018 not back to when a partner dies (in my case 2012) . As I could only claim until 03 sept 2018 ( when I was no longer eligible for child benefit ) I could only claim 3 days - not all the way back to 2012 . On this basis it is not worth continuing with .