Untaken private pension and housing benefit

Ciprico

Hi, 

I'm asking on behalf of someone else, they live in  charity owned sheltered accomodation. She is 59 and probably on every benefit available... This is a question about housing benefit, and a private pension her father set up years ago.

I understood she would not be forced to take her pp until she reached pensionable age, so the pp wouldn't impact her benefits..

But her local council sent her the below, which im struggling to answer...

Can anyone help, it appears to be written by someone who doesn't know how a pension works....

 

In addition to this, the xxx Pension plan worth £xxx, please provide confirmation of this plan to show the full value, can this be accessed at any time by xxx. If this pension plan is for her retirement years, please provide confirmation of this.

tacpot12

You are correct, and I agree the council form is confusing. 

I would suggest that she/you respond to say that the pension can be accessed at anytime (as she is now over 55 years old), and also confirm that it is for her retirement years. 

I think the question harks back to a time when some people took out pensions as part of a mortgage, the idea being you would take the tax free amount at some defined point (after age 55) and use it to clear the mortgage. That is not the case here. 

I would also include some narrative on the form to remind them that they cannot consider the value of the pension plan when considering her entitlement to Housing Benefit.

I would also recommend she makes a complaint to her local councillor (you can write the email and send it from her email address if she has one, if not send if from your own and make it clear that she has asked to be emailed their reply to your address. The complaint is about how confusing the form is, and ask that it be improved so that others can repsond without having to worry that the council will get it wrong. 

Danien

It looks like it's just a clumsy form. They usually just want full details of the pension and assess it. If they start demanding she drawdown the pension then an appeal can be put in at that stage. Normally they just want to check when the pension starts paying out automatically- there are some that kick in at 60, so that's probably all it is, they just want to see the pension terms and conditions.