News: State Pension boosting top-ups blocked for thousands in HMRC error ahead of crucial deadline

MSE_Rosie

Thousands of people making requests to check and top up State Pensions were wrongly denied ahead of a crucial deadline to do so on Saturday 5 April, HMRC has confirmed to MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE). But if you were hit by the error, you should be contacted directly and given another chance to fill any gaps in your National Insurance (NI) record.

Read the full story here. 

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eskbanker

Is it really necessary to perpetuate the familiar myth, thereby contributing to, rather than resolving, confusion?

You usually need at least 35 full NI years to get the maximum new state pension

Muttleythefrog

An utter farce... because the day before it wrongly closed top up options/said it was too late it was showing 5 May 2025 as a deadline (for the earlier years). What happened to that I wonder or was that a programming error too. What is it with government departments and computer systems that makes it feel like they're being managed by The Chuckle Brothers (or at least the one still alive!)

DRS1

Amazing how many people were trying to do this on the last possible day.

badmemory

Blame all those last minute newspaper etc reports.  Unfortunately not everyone reads MSE.

Topofthesass

I was one of the 21,000 trying to do it on the day of the deadline. Not really amazing, just a matter of keeping the funds in my account for as long as possible before transferring them and now they will be in there until HMRC get in touch. Could be a while. Wink.

whammy90

My NI record showed that I had until the 22nd of April 2025 to close a few gaps going back to 2010, I wish I'd taken a screenshot now to prove that the date had changed! Buying years back is expensive and I have been gradually paying down gaps over the last year, so this was not a last-minute scramble. Disappointed to have missed out due to a programming error that published false deadline changes.

Oddsocks2016

Not leaving it to the last minute I went on to the Gov.co.uk site on the 20th March to pay for 2018-2019 to see a message that the period had been extended to the 18th April. 2 weeks later I go on again to find that had disappeared and I had now missed the deadline. 

Muttleythefrog

DRS1 said:

Amazing how many people were trying to do this on the last possible day.

Blame the DWP and Government information in our case... we tried for 10 years to find out if Carer's Credit was a public fund (for NRPF/immigration purposes)... they ended up losing paperwork and we ended up in a deadline crisis when we forced the to take a decision on potential backdating.. the Decision Maker didn't even know so had to escalate for advice.. we begged them to give a decision and communicate it by phone by the last working day we had... they took a decision a couple of days prior but never bothered to inform us... we paid voluntary contribs on the last day possible and yesterday received a letter they could have communicated the contents of saving us from late in the day farce. Fortunately we made the right decision... carer's credit was determined to be a public fund so any backdating request became irrelevant... but it took 10 years of repeated research and asking followed by application and then reconsideration (which they admit they lost for months) to force answers and get someone to commit to saying that.

Milkjug

Hello MSE, 
I have a dilemma - I filled in the form to receive a call back from DWP. I'm not able to apply to fill the gaps online as I lived abroad and that means I have to arrange any topup over the phone. On Monday I had a text from the DWP to say that they would call me between 8am and 6pm the next day. They would try twice and to please make sure I was available. I kept my phone next to me for the 10 hours. No call came. There has been no message of follow up and there seems to be no straightforward way of contacting the DWP. 
Has anyone else had this happen to them? Do you have any advice? 
Thank you. 

QrizB

Milkjug said:

.Has anyone else had this happen to them? Do you have any advice? 

There have been a few people this week who have received the text message but no phone call, so you're not alone.

See eg. this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6601340/dwp-hmrc-didnt-call