Delay with pension lump sum payment

xylophone

We'll just have to wait with bated breath for the explanation!

lindos90

It will be 15 working days on Monday since my other half submitted his formal complaint. They say they will respond in 15 days, I'm not holding my breath! 
Frustratingly we have now lost 65 days worth of interest on a significant lump sum that we were banking on (pardon the pun) to supplement our pensions. 
I googled 'teacher pension reviews' and their trustpilot reviews are apauling, 1.5 out of 5 for the service they provide. Guess who the government gave the contract to, to run it? Capita! Says it all really!
Looking at the website, the next thing is to escalate to the dept of education before we can go to the pensions ombudsman. 

xylophone

The service is appalling, but I think that you would need to wait the full fifteen working days before contacting the administrator.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/complaining-about-delays-to-your-pension might be worth a shot for help with framing your formal complaint to the DoE.

LHW99

xylophone said:

The service is appalling, but I think that you would need to wait the full fifteen working days before contacting the administrator.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/complaining-about-delays-to-your-pension might be worth a shot for hepl with framing your formal complaint to the DoE.

And its probably 15 "working days", so could be almost 20 actual days, if 2 weekends have to be included.

lindos90

xylophone said:

The service is appalling, but I think that you would need to wait the full fifteen working days before contacting the administrator.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/complaining-about-delays-to-your-pension might be worth a shot for help with framing your formal complaint to the DoE.

Yes Monday will be the 15th working day, so if it doesn't materialise, then we can take it further.

I'll show my OH the link thank you. We copied our original formal complaint as it had a lot of detail, hopefully that will just need a bit of editing and we will send it to the Dept of Ed (I'm guessing thats the administrator you mentioned?) Its already consumed so much of our time researching,  making sure we had covered everything in the formal complaint, waiting for someone to answer a phone, time on calls etc we thought copying it in the event we would need to take it further would help us.

I really don't know what their excuse for the delay could be, it can't be that they are waiting on paperwork from his employer, or from my OH to finalise calculations, because they are paying him his monthly payment. Nor can it be that they need to wait until the following pay day, as we have now had three of those now! 

lindos90

LHW99 said:

xylophone said:

The service is appalling, but I think that you would need to wait the full fifteen working days before contacting the administrator.

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement/pension-problems/complaining-about-delays-to-your-pension might be worth a shot for hepl with framing your formal complaint to the DoE.

And its probably 15 "working days", so could be almost 20 actual days, if 2 weekends have to be included.

Yes it is that, sorry if I didnt make it clear. He made the complaint online (so theres no '15 days from receipt of letter' delay tactic) on Tuesday 17th Oct, so tomorrow will be the 15th working day. I just can't believe they will pull their finger out at the 11th hour and sort it all by tomorrow after absolutely nothing from them so far even though its been promised several times.

Although I can see from their trustpilot reviews that they have kept people waiting much longer than 15 days, I can't see an example of a delay with the lump sum payment, hopefully its not a regular occurrence! 

lindos90

Update...
Letter from TP today, now two days overdue from their 15 working day requirement to address the complaint.

Apparently our complaint is so complex (is it though?) that they need at least another 15 working days to investigate it.

If they are allowed to simply do that rather than pay him, They could keep kicking the can down the road for months! 

Couldn't they pay him and investigate how/why it has happened after that?

OH is not disputing their calculations, just the fact it was due to be paid the lump sum when he retired on 1st August 🤷‍♀️

Roger175

lindos90

You have my sympathies, this is outrageous! 

I know you won't want to hear this, but my wife stopped work last year and formally retired a few weeks ago aged 60. She had two DB pensions, one from our Local Authority (teaching assistant) and one from he former work-life with Barclays (administered by the dreaded WTW). In both cases she opted to take the lump sum and, based on tales we've heard here and elsewhere, we fully expected these to take months to arrive. Imagine our surprise when they were both paid into her account on her 60th birthday - as it should be of course, but we were not expecting it to actually happen.

I can only imagine your frustration with this and the added kick in the teeth, that the complaints process appears to be having no effect. Best wishes and I hope it gets resolved very soon.

Pat38493

Would there eventually be some kind of legal recourse if a pension just refused to pay out for months or years?  Surely there is some kind of legal duty on the trustees to fulfill member's benefits within a reasonable time frame?

xylophone

Apparently our complaint is so complex (is it though?)

Good grief!  How complex is "my pension commencement lump sum of £xxxx which was due payable on 1/9/23 has not yet been received"?

Utterly shocking service.