How does AIP work after death

bob_a_builder

FIL - died recently, since got probate etc
FIL & MIL have a DWP letter from 2020 indicating they have Pension Credit and an Assessed Income Period  ( can't find any  later letters on the subject) and they last 5 years don't they ?
His bank account had risen to 30k at time of death - just from pension payments, no other income, were just not spending it quick enough !

Given there an AIP in place, whats likely to happen with DWP recovery dept ?

SnowMan

Detailed information on assessed income periods (AIP) is here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pension-credit-technical-guidance/a-detailed-guide-to-pension-credit-for-advisers-and-others#assessed-income-period

If there was an AIP in place at 2020 then it is likely to be an indefinite period AIP because of your father-in-law's age being over 75 at 6th April 2016. Was he over age 75? The set period AIPs (e,g. 5 years) will have ended around the time new AIPs were abolished, so if there was one in place at 2020, logically it is very likely that it will have been indefinite.

The link sets out the criteria for an AIP ending. Do any of those apply? Increases in capital from income payments don't end the AIP. So unless there was a reason for the AIP to end, and as long as capital was correctly assessed when the AIP was set, pension credit will have been correctly paid and so the DWP recovery department should pick this up. Whether they will pick this up is a different matter.

Was your father-in-law in receipt of any other benefits such as housing benefit or council tax reduction? These wouldn't be affected by the capital if he was in receipt of guaranteed pension credit, because that gives him automatic entitlement to these benefits. But if he was only in receipt of savings pension credit there could be an issue there as entitlement doesn't apply above 16K capital.

Newly_retired

It took two years of letters and phone calls to get DWP to accept that my mother-in-law was on an AIP and therefore to agree that there was no overpayment. They should have known, of course. It should not be up to the executor to have to prove it.

bob_a_builder

Thanks for the feedback. 

Looking at the link I don't see any reason for the AIP to have stopped - but we'll see 
As a result of the Tell Me Once - DWP have already come back and claimed the natural overpayments between death and notification

No housing benefit (own house), there was a council tax reduction in place 

No mention in the letter of "savings pension credit", but does say "Because your pension credit includes the pension credit guarantee credit you are also entitled to some health benefits ...."

Good to have the heads up that they might want/try/!!!!!! up the acceptance of an AIP being in place

Was worried they might want to claim more back based on savings limits - but from what you say if the AIP is still in place that shouldn't be the case ?

SnowMan

As long as the pension credit was all correctly calculated (i.e. right capital then) when the AIP was set some years ago, and it was an indefinite AIP, then subsequent increases in savings are irrelevant, and are ignored, and so there is no overpayment of pension credit, as you've confirmed there was no reason for the AIP to end.

You've confirmed also that the pensions credit included guaranteed pension credit (it's irrelevant if pension savings credit was paid as well). So the council tax reduction is likely to have been correct also as the guaranteed pension credit should be a passport to maximum council tax reduction regardless of capital (each council has it's own scheme, albeit above pension age they are pretty much all the same, but this is a fundamental part of all the schemes as far as I am aware). So the council shouldn't be coming at you for overpaid council tax reduction either as there is none.

As you say the 'natural' overpayments are a different matter.

janarchy

(Now with added paragraphs ...)

My mother was 88 when she died in May. She had an indefinite AIP, it was confirmed today, and given that AIPs were scrapped in 2016 for new claimants, it's likely she had an AIP in place for years.

The wording states that changes in savings or investments do not have to be reported unless the change would lead to more Pension Credit (ie not less).

 This was also confirmed by a benefits advisor to whom I spoke, worried sick as executor because of my own health issues and now the instruction not to distribute the estate as the DWP will be checking for overpayments and can seize assets.

 I've already repaid the posthumous pension payment and have yet to receive a receipt for the pension credit element as they have sights set on more, I presume.

So an indefinite AIP definitely ceases after death leaving the bereft family to cope with the mess and pick up the pieces ? Is that fair? My mother was a saver not a swindler and invested in PreBonds as a safety net. They only climbed above the £10k savings threshold - which the AIP indicates she didn't have to report - in the two months preceding her death. By £150.

However, she hadn't been able to get out so much to spend, which saw her building society accounts rise through inertia, inflated by winter fuel payments of £600 (December) and Cost of Living awards of £300 and £299 (!) earlier this year, which even when the bulk of a pension is removed, as she always preferred , leaves quite a sizeable residual sum.

Add a well meaning daughter transferring £450 to her mum's account towards the stairlift she bought last year ) with saved attendance allowance at the higher rate) and again it artificially inflates the total left on her death.

 So as i understand it, if the AIP had not been in place,  over x number of years, and then indefinitely, for every £500 or part thereof above the £10k threshold £1 would be taken every week from the one means tested (formerly) element of my mother's pension.

Perhaps they should change indefinitely to in death-initely? And it's tortuous for me, at her side night and day, to the very end; having struggled to move furniture out and then clean the previously hidden mould off walls and carpets to create a safe space for my mum in the hospital bed in what used to be our dining, now dying, room .

Then struggle to find someone able to medivac Ma downstairs- because she was too frail to use the stairlift. She died three days later in the NHS style sheets I'd rushed to buy as our sheets wouldn't fit, along with with pressure relief aids that didn't work, commodes and liners and oxygen machines and the list goes on.

I don't grudge a penny of it -  but the DWP doesn't see that side.  

  I did dreadful vascular damage to my legs trying to dismantle heavy duty steel clothes racks in the box room to create space to store stuff from downstairs.

 I got rid of bulky furniture because there was nowhere to store it and it was pointless to keep it in what was to become a household for one owner occupier.  

Now I'm waiting on biopsies from last Friday's "urgent referral for suspected lower gastro intestinal cancer." The stress of bereavement, of losing my warrior mum, who had to fight poverty before and after my dad died in 1974 - he cancelled the mortgage protection policy because he "didn't want a merry widow" - is immense.

I'm ambushed by grief at every turn, having held it together for the funeral, the funeral plan (which was paid late), the paperwork, the Probate. Now I'm falling far too often without warning (referral to neurologist)  and with attendant injuries (broken ribs, bruised hip two weeks ago) and while I'm not as worried about cancer as I was as i think the scope would have spotted it - this ongoing war of attrition is stealing sleep, peace of mind, even my future. I seriously wonder if it will be the death of me. Indefinitely... 

RAS

Try a few paragraphs?

Marcon

janarchy said:

(Now with added paragraphs ...)

My mother was 88 when she died in May. She had an indefinite AIP, it was confirmed today, and given that AIPs were scrapped in 2016 for new claimants, it's likely she had an AIP in place for years.

The wording states that changes in savings or investments do not have to be reported unless the change would lead to more Pension Credit (ie not less).

 This was also confirmed by a benefits advisor to whom I spoke, worried sick as executor because of my own health issues and now the instruction not to distribute the estate as the DWP will be checking for overpayments and can seize assets.

 I've already repaid the posthumous pension payment and have yet to receive a receipt for the pension credit element as they have sights set on more, I presume.

So an indefinite AIP definitely ceases after death leaving the bereft family to cope with the mess and pick up the pieces ? Is that fair? My mother was a saver not a swindler and invested in PreBonds as a safety net. They only climbed above the £10k savings threshold - which the AIP indicates she didn't have to report - in the two months preceding her death. By £150.

However, she hadn't been able to get out so much to spend, which saw her building society accounts rise through inertia, inflated by winter fuel payments of £600 (December) and Cost of Living awards of £300 and £299 (!) earlier this year, which even when the bulk of a pension is removed, as she always preferred , leaves quite a sizeable residual sum.

Add a well meaning daughter transferring £450 to her mum's account towards the stairlift she bought last year ) with saved attendance allowance at the higher rate) and again it artificially inflates the total left on her death.

 So as i understand it, if the AIP had not been in place,  over x number of years, and then indefinitely, for every £500 or part thereof above the £10k threshold £1 would be taken every week from the one means tested (formerly) element of my mother's pension.

Perhaps they should change indefinitely to in death-initely? And it's tortuous for me, at her side night and day, to the very end; having struggled to move furniture out and then clean the previously hidden mould off walls and carpets to create a safe space for my mum in the hospital bed in what used to be our dining, now dying, room .

Then struggle to find someone able to medivac Ma downstairs- because she was too frail to use the stairlift. She died three days later in the NHS style sheets I'd rushed to buy as our sheets wouldn't fit, along with with pressure relief aids that didn't work, commodes and liners and oxygen machines and the list goes on.

I don't grudge a penny of it -  but the DWP doesn't see that side.  

  I did dreadful vascular damage to my legs trying to dismantle heavy duty steel clothes racks in the box room to create space to store stuff from downstairs.

 I got rid of bulky furniture because there was nowhere to store it and it was pointless to keep it in what was to become a household for one owner occupier.  

Now I'm waiting on biopsies from last Friday's "urgent referral for suspected lower gastro intestinal cancer." The stress of bereavement, of losing my warrior mum, who had to fight poverty before and after my dad died in 1974 - he cancelled the mortgage protection policy because he "didn't want a merry widow" - is immense.

I'm ambushed by grief at every turn, having held it together for the funeral, the funeral plan (which was paid late), the paperwork, the Probate. Now I'm falling far too often without warning (referral to neurologist)  and with attendant injuries (broken ribs, bruised hip two weeks ago) and while I'm not as worried about cancer as I was as i think the scope would have spotted it - this ongoing war of attrition is stealing sleep, peace of mind, even my future. I seriously wonder if it will be the death of me. Indefinitely... 

Nobody in their right mind could fail to sympathise with you, but I'm not quite sure if there are any actual (non-rhetorical) questions anyone here might be able to help with?

janarchy

The key question would be should the DWP be chasing this up from the estate after the death of the claimant? After all those AIPs urge not to report changes in investments and savings  unless it would lead to more Pension Credit. Ma's savings and PreBonds investment were not considerable but in keeping with declining ability, in the aftermath of 2020, to have short hols, trips out and treats, and fret about being out and about when certain health issues become more problematic or potentially embarrassing in public.  Food for thought in light of the latest push for more to claim Pension Credit. But at least now I know where some of the money may be coming from. 

Newly_retired

I am not convinced that DWP will necessarily be reclaiming an Pension Credit overpayments. DWP issue these warning letters, but for those on an indefinite AIP, there was no limit to what they could have in their bank / savings account. Why do you think a different rule might apply after their death?

janarchy

Newly_retired said:

I am not convinced that DWP will necessarily be reclaiming an Pension Credit overpayments. DWP issue these warning letters, but for those on an indefinite AIP, there was no limit to what they could have in their bank / savings account. Why do you think a different rule might apply after their death?

Because that's what I've been told when I've called DWP to query this and I've specifically mentioned the indefinite AIP and been told that they will be looking at the amount of money, deducting the non-means tested pension elements and calculating overpayment on what's left. The fact that I have yet to receive a receipt for refunding the overpayment of the pension credit - but have for the non-means tested elements when all three were 'overpaid' a week after Ma's death - seems to indicate an ongoing review. And the DWP is already under immense pressure as recent purges on other benefit claimants have indicated.  It doesn't sit very comfortably with the Government's campaign to encourage others to claim from the estimated £8m of unclaimed pension credit. I'm just devastated. It's hard enough to cope with losing someone you love and will always love more than anyone else in the world, after doing your utmost to keep them safe - the grief doesn't go away (and my own health hassles ) just because the DWP is involved. Thanks for your reply, Newly retired.