Contrib. Old age pension-claiming for wife

I understand that an increase can be claimed for a wife if her assets/income are under a certain limit. If the wife owns the family home in her sole name or has gifted money to a child some years prior to her husband claiming the pension. Would the husband be entitled to the increased pension for a dependent wife in this case.

Looking forward to your replies.

spaceman said:

I understand that an increase can be claimed for a wife if her assets/income are under a certain limit. If the wife owns the family home in her sole name or has gifted money to a child some years prior to her husband claiming the pension. Would the husband be entitled to the increased pension for a dependent wife in this case.

Looking forward to your replies.

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as I understand things the family home has to be owned by both , and that can't be changed.... (i think its the family act. 1972... or something)

spaceman:
The situation applies if the wife cannot sucessfully claim a 'contributory pension' in her own right. This would have happened if the individual was not in the workforce since 1954. (Despite the full time job at home!) In other words, there is no 'means test' in that case.

Basically a 'means test' is calculated. The house is ignored. Its the other assets, and these are deemed to be 50/50. The husbands half is ignored.

The issue of the gift would be problematic, if it was made to specificlly reduce the assets to come under the threshold. If it was done for 'bona fides' purposes then thats a different matter.

It sounds like that is the case, and also I am assuming little other assets.

Hi Spaceman

If the gift was many years ago, it's unlikely that it would be considered non 'bona fides'. Assuming the wife has no income in her own name, it comes down to how much she has in capital assets, excluding her principal private residence, but including 50% of anything held in joint names with her husband.

It's a prime example of how doing what seems to be the correct thing (e.g. putting assets in joint names) can actually end up costing you a lot of money. The basic message is, if one spouse is the sole breadwinner, it can make financial sense to put everything in that spouse's name in order to qualify for the dependant's element of the State pension.

Advance planning is probably essential in such cases and it is not clear from your posting whether you are enquiring about a current situation or a potential future one. If it is a future situation, then there is probably still time to arrange your finances in such a way that you don't prejudice your entitlement to the dependant's element of your State pension.

Hope this helps.

Homer