Civil Service Classic Widows Pension

confusedwidow9

I am a 70 year old widow and have my late husband of 2 years Civil Service Classic Pension.
A family friend aged 78 , has suggested we get married as we are both on our own.
will I have to loose my pension or will it be reduced. I will still need my pension to survive as 70 years old.

Flugelhorn

page 17 implies that the pension would stop  https://jsspensions.nerc.ac.uk/docs/guides/classic-scheme-guide-september-2017.pdf

If your widow, widower or surviving civil partner remarries or enters a (new) civil partnership or lives with someone as husband and wife or as civil partner, the pension will either stop or reduce. It may be restored if: • the second marriage, civil partnership or cohabitation has come to an end and your widow, widower or surviving civil partner is left financially worse off than he or she was at the end of the marriage/civil partnership that gave rise to the civil service pension, or • there are exceptional compassionate reasons for restoring the pension.

Marcon

confusedwidow9 said:

I am a 70 year old widow and have my late husband of 2 years Civil Service Classic Pension.
A family friend aged 78 , has suggested we get married as we are both on our own.
will I have to loose my pension or will it be reduced. I will still need my pension to survive as 70 years old.

If this is Classic, then the following applies, taken from https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/knowledge-centre/pension-schemes/classic-scheme-guide/death-benefits/:

Effect of remarrying, entering a (new) civil partnership or living with someone as husband and wife or as civil partners

If your widow, widower or surviving civil partner remarries or enters a (new) civil partnership or lives with someone as husband and wife or as civil partner, the pension will either stop or reduce. It may be restored if:

• the second marriage, civil partnership or cohabitation has come to an end and your widow, widower or surviving civil partner is left financially worse off than he or she was at the end of the marriage/civil partnership that gave rise to the civil service pension, or
• there are exceptional compassionate reasons for restoring the pension.

 
If the scheme is actually Classic Plus, see https://www.civilservicepensionscheme.org.uk/knowledge-centre/pension-schemes/classic-plus-scheme-guide/death-benefits/ and especially the section which reads:

Will my husband’s, wife’s or civil partner’s pension carry on if they remarry or enter into another civil partnership?

If your husband, wife or civil partner should remarry, enter into another civil partnership or live with someone as a partner, we will stop paying the part of the pension that is based on your service before 1 October 2002. But if their new relationship comes to an end, we may then restore that part of their pension.

Example

When Gordon retired he was awarded a pension of £11,000 (£5,000 based on his service before 1 October 2002 and £6,000 based on his service from 1 October 2002) plus an automatic lump sum of £15,000.

Gordon decided to commute (give up) £1,125 of his annual pension so he can have an additional lump sum of £13,500 (subject to the Lifetime Allowance).

When Gordon dies, although his pension was £9,875 a year, his widow gets a pension of £4,750 a year (3/8 x £6,000 + 1/2 x £5,000).

hugheskevi

Note in particular from the above that it is not only marriage that triggers the ending of the classic survivor pension, but also living together as husband and wife. If you are already living together you may already be ineligible for the survivor pension.

drummersdale

How on earth would My CSP know unless you (or someone else) tells them?  

Silvertabby

OP will be sent 'entitlement review' forms from time to time.  If she declares that she hasn't remarried or is co-habiting, then that would be fraud. 

drummersdale

Ahh I see, it's evasion as opposed to avoidance.....although I strongly suspect the chances of anyone doing any form of detection on whether someone is co-habiting or not is slim - you are lucky if you get a response from My CSP so unless they have a large number of people employed doing these checks I expect it's luck of the draw.  Not that I am condoning evasion of course.  

Nebulous2

drummersdale said:

Ahh I see, it's evasion as opposed to avoidance.....although I strongly suspect the chances of anyone doing any form of detection on whether someone is co-habiting or not is slim - you are lucky if you get a response from My CSP so unless they have a large number of people employed doing these checks I expect it's luck of the draw.  Not that I am condoning evasion of course.  

My personal experience is based on a relatively small sample, but around these parts people who form relationships later in life, without marrying, often seem to continue to maintain two households. 

I'm sure there are reasons other than maintaining pensions for that to be the case. 

Silvertabby

I'm not for one minute suggesting that this will happen in this case - I'm just relating a tale from my LGPS days.....
A LGPS widow in receipt of a substantial pension started to co-habit with a widower prior to marriage.  She rang to advise us of her change of address, having previously checked and confirmed that payment of her widow's pension WOULD continue (different rules apply throughout the public sector).
Then one of the widower's daughters rang us to try to 'bubble' the lady, because she didn't approve of her dad's relationship with her. 

I'm sure this wouldn't have been an isolated incident.