Past State Pension age but still hoping to top-up? What do the delays cost you that you didn't plan?

1957DfurdPensionist

If you are past State Pension age (SPa) and still planning to pay VC's, these questions may be for you, and indeed for case-handlers who might well be confused about how to calculate the right numbers for your case.

When you finally get to pay VC's what will be the effective dates of increases to your main pension and if you have deferred beyond SPa, increases to your Extra State Pension (ESP - i.e. +1% per every 9 weeks deferred and all that)?

Will the date they use be:

• the actual date your VC's (finally) get recorded as arrived at HMRC i.e. as if no DWP/HMRC delays/maladministration have been admitted,
• 5th April 2025 - the moving feast deadline,
• your SPa date,
• a date corresponding to the end of any deferral period you originally chose,
• a date prior to the end of any deferral period,
• the next April Triple Lock/CPI (for ESP) uplift date, or
• some other date?

The reason I ask is because I found out yesterday, after querying for weeks why the numbers in my latest decision letter didn't add up, that my case-handler now says they made a mistake.  That was actually the third attempt at a decision letter on what was supposed to be a brand new claim before last Christmas! .  I still haven't seen decision letter#3, but I've had it read to me.  It was sent over six weeks ago via that shady Netherlands "non-critical" post outfit, and still hasn't arrived.

My case-handler is quite a smart cookie and no doubt in my mind clears cases faster than the majority of their colleagues - I received an unexpected call 5 months ago in which we discussed, and then agreed details of my deferral options, and I was seriously impressed.  I think I said as much in an earlier post.  However, that same individual has now let it be known to one or two junior colleagues that 5 months ago the options I was given both verbally and in writing from the same case-handler were somewhat incorrect. The numbers had been reduced in decision letter#3, and I couldn't work out how.  Yesterday I wasn't given the reason.  The junior from the case-handler's "team " was only able to repeat that the case-handler's original figures were wrong, and repeated the new figures.  After schooling the junior in how to increase small three figure numbers by small single digit percentages,  I finally worked out during the second call what they had done.  It was a question of effective dates and which number from which backdate period needed to be enhanced by the deferred 1% per week, and then CPI going forward each April.

But never mind my own case, I suddenly realised that all the above-listed questions may be being interpreted rather exploitatively against the likes of us beyond SPa.  This may mean that relatively senior personnel at DWP have started applying more restrictive guidelines in the last few months. Case-handlers normally do not speak with us, even if we have spoken before and ask for them by name.  My one-time experience was never repeated despite invitations originally in writing to call with questions.

Some readers, those who mightn't trouble to take care of the mere pennies, and only get annoyed when tens of pounds per week could be missing, might say "Who cares?", especially if they have private means.  As I have indicated in other posts, I do.  I care not just for myself, but for thousands of others who might never have possessed the skill to follow the maths behind how their pension is calculated and "trust" that HMG knows what it is doing.

The differences I am talking about can easily eventually add up to missing double figures per week especially after future years of compound interest effects from Triple Lock/CPI. 

So, when you eventually learn what they think they owe you, but are not clear if it is spot-on correct, I suggest you might bring the numbers and dates here where I think a number of forumites might be able to comment.

Silvertabby

My understanding is that the increase is applied from the date the payment was received.  

1957DfurdPensionist

Silvertabby said:

My understanding is that the increase is applied from the date the payment was received.  

@Silvertabby, please forgive me but isn't that a rather simplistic comment given the outrageous continuing delays and uncertainties in advising pensionists of their options for paying VC's ??

Silvertabby

Not really.  It's just a buoy of certainty in a sea of confusion.

1957DfurdPensionist

Silvertabby said:

Not really.  It's just a buoy of certainty in a sea of confusion.

@Silvertabby, well I don't know about you, but I never venture across any sea under my own power without navigation preparation, fuel for all contingencies and the means to constantly track my own course to my intended destination.  Some ancient charted buoy left well behind in an old safe harbour is of no use to any serious navigator finding themselves out of sight of land at the apparent mercy of confused seas!

Silvertabby

Yet you left your payment of NI top ups until the last possible moment?  My preparation was paying the 4 years I needed 4 years ago, a year before I reached SPA.  The information has been out there for years   

1957DfurdPensionist

Silvertabby said:

Yet you left your payment of NI top ups until the last possible moment?  My preparation was paying the 4 years I needed 4 years ago, a year before I reached SPA.  The information has been out there for years   

Hehe. Yes we all love the smarts amongst us

But I suggested in the first post here that my case was not really the one to discuss.  It has just given me many insights into how the backroom DWP staff have started to interpret the rules differently  to when  I first started talking to them 18 months or more ago, and maybe starting during the past 5 months.  The thread is about how the interpretations may affect the general case for all those past SPa who still want to Top-Up, but are being kept waiting during inordinate delay periods, DWP's use of duff snail-mail postal systems etc...

But since you want to make it personal, please don't try to second guess my case - it is not relevant to my general warning because I have resolved most of it in ways you might only dream - and so far you have it rather wrong.

Incidentally, what about your story which you managed so well ?  Were you hard at work for those few years before SPa, and simultaneously able to find time in becoming an SP and VC expert? Bravo 

I was hard at work, abroad, and still working until 18 months beyond SPa when my retirement was suddenly forced upon me by unexpected medical news.  I carried on another year or so.  Otherwise, I'd still be concentrating on work each day which I enjoyed.  I still have on my desk SP forecasts from 2006, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2020.   All in all a bvgger's muddle of pp communication. I started enquiring about VC's when  I reached SPa and discovered forecasts were no longer published for those beyond SPa.  I insisted on paying HMRC in full over a year ago, even before I knew exactly what I could expect from it.  Even a year ago, the backlog and delays and phone waiting times were awful, and I did not want to be told that I had paid late so my nSP would be less than hoped for.  I eventually got half of it back, but would like to have paid one more year and still haven't had a proper answer about why I can't.  I have been far more in control of my own case than 99% of the poor people in the callback queues.  Nuff said about my case?

Bluntly put, the thread questions what adjustments DWP/HMRC should be encouraged to make to the "VC treat as paid date" and to the knock-on effects, when they finally settle the backlog cases, and as I said, your first post was rather simplistic, if not unhelpful to all those still waiting callbacks totally unaware of what and how to pay and what they may confidently expect to achieve by it. Now is that not fair comment if delays are not the punters' fault?

TractorBird

Are people still getting call backs after registering for one before the deadline?

QrizB

TractorBird said:

Are people still getting call backs after registering for one before the deadline?

Reports on this forum suggest that yes, they are.

1957DfurdPensionist

TractorBird said:

Are people still getting call backs after registering for one before the deadline?

I think the question is better framed as "Are people still getting some sort of call backs after registering for one before the deadline", and the answer is more accurately:

"Reports on this forum suggest that yes, they are people who have been close to their phone at all times have received a sort of pre-callback by a junior agent from within in a somewhat hastily comprised team, the purpose of which is merely to double-check people's identity in preparation for and with promise of an expected further callback by a more senior agent.  Reports of callbacks of the second type, and thus constructive outcomes are so far less numerous."

QrizB

Reports of callbacks of the second type, and thus constructive outcomes are so far less numerous.

Simple logic will dictate that, if everyone due a callback potentially gets two calls - the first a short one from a junior to screen them, then (if needed) a longer and more in-depth one later from a more qualified agent - there will be more of the former than of the latter.

Even if no-one is screened out, the former will always come first and numbers of calls will only be equal once everyone has received both.