Self Employed New Style ESA

MrsJ1995

Hi,

Just looking to get some advice on what my mother-in-law may be entitled to and checking I've understood the information correctly.

My MIL is self-employed as home help/cleaner. She will reach state pension age on 25/3/25. Her and her husband have savings over £6k so not entitled to any means tested benefits.

For the last 2 years, she opted out of paying Class 2 NI contributions as she was below the threshold and already had the number of qualifying years needed for her full state pension.

On 16/11/24, she badly fractured her knee and is not expected to be able to do her job by the time she retires. (She is planning on claiming her pension on 25/3/25).

Would she be eligible for new style ESA, if she paid her contributions from the previous years? Would it be worth it?

I'm getting slightly confused with which contributions can be paid voluntarily and how much this would cost her.

Thanks in advance

Dazed_and_C0nfused

MrsJ1995 said:

Hi,

Just looking to get some advice on what my mother-in-law may be entitled to and checking I've understood the information correctly.

My MIL is self-employed as home help/cleaner. She will reach state pension age on 25/3/25. Her and her husband have savings over £6k so not entitled to any means tested benefits.

For the last 2 years, she opted out of paying Class 2 NI contributions as she was below the threshold and already had the number of qualifying years needed for her full state pension.

On 16/11/24, she badly fractured her knee and is not expected to be able to do her job by the time she retires. (She is planning on claiming her pension on 25/3/25).

Would she be eligible for new style ESA, if she paid her contributions from the previous years? Would it be worth it?

I'm getting slightly confused with which contributions can be paid voluntarily and how much this would cost her.

Thanks in advance

No doubt someone more knowledgeable will answer your main question shortly but are you sure she has understood her State Pension position correctly?

As she is under transitional rules there isn't a generic number of years she would need, there will be a very specific numbers of years based on her own NI history.  Previous experience has shown this can range from 28-50 years.

So what has she done to be sure she will be entitled to the State Pension she expects to get?

MrsJ1995

She accessed her state pension statement/forecast which informed her that she already had the number of years of contributions required for a full state pension.

huckster

Don't think it is worth paying in class 2 conts to then make a New Style ESA claim that pays £90.50 per week.  The ESA claim would only be up to state pension age next March 2025 and there would be a work capability assessment due which may end the claim earlier when the assessor believes they could do some form of work.

 I don't think it would work anyway, as the NI record would show than no NI conts were made during the relevant tax years and only a top up had been paid at a later date. From what I understand it is not possible to pay NI conts at a later date in order to get benefit entitlement.