Private Pension V Pension Credit & Benefits

JoJoArmani

Hi

Can anyone help me with this.

Mother in law (67) and husband get full pension credit at £189 a week. Also get rent and council tax paid for.

Her husband will shortly be getting his works pension through as he is now 60. They have given him a guess-timate of around £5k pa.

I tried that "Entitled to" thing but it would appear they will have to pay a fair portion of council tax and rent when the private pension comes through and it would appear they won't be that much better off.

Does this sound right?

Thanks for any advice!

JoJO

EdInvestor

JoJoArmani wrote: »

I tried that "Entitled to" thing but it would appear they will have to pay a fair portion of council tax and rent when the private pension comes through and it would appear they won't be that much better off.

Does this sound right?

Yes.The idea of pension credit is that it tops people's income up to a minimum level, not that it's paid in addition to whatever pension or other income they are entitled to. Once the chap gets his state pension from age 65 as well, he probably won't be entitled to any pension credit at all.However, he probably won't pay any tax either.:)

But there are sometimes problems for people who are on the borderline, with small pensions, where they can lose benefits (usually the HB/CT aspect) and be worse off.There are some rather complicated ways of avoiding this, their local CAB is the best place to go to see if there are ways of sorting this if it affects them (doesn't sound as though it will).

JoJoArmani

Thanks so much.

I guess they will just have to wait and see what they get from the occupational pension and get their benefits re-assesed and see how it all pans out.

I think I will play dumb until they get all the figures through and try and help them then - it's a bit of a "what if" until then.

Thanks again!
JoJo