Pension should have been paid to spouse on death

Mother in law passed suddenly in April 2020. Herself and husband owned their own home and both had state pension. Mother in law had small private pension from major British retailer in Ireland.

Her husband my father in law was executor of will and it was all beyond him. I assisted closing bank accounts & credit union and cancelled state pension. I called the private pension to advise of her death and asked if anything was payable to her spouse and advised it was not. Her pension with them was cancelled immediately and I returned a staff card she kept that gave her store discount even after retirement. Paper work was scare on his pension as she died so suddenly.

Fast forward, nearly 3 years I get a call unexpectedly from auditors re the pension to advise her spouse should have been receiving 2/3 since her passing. I am waiting on final figure from them if it will be a lump sum or monthly payment.

12 months after her passing father in law sold the family home and moved into senior apartments a scheme run by DCC. He felt he could not keep the house on one pension and was concerned over utility bills. His children offered to assist monthly but he was a proud man and wanted to be independent as all his children still had young families. He likes his new accommodation and has financial security now with sale of his home.

I just can’t help but feel if he had known about the private pension at the time would this have been factor in his decision to sell the family home.

Should the pension company or the store be offering compensation? I want to make sure I explore all outcomes this time around for him.

OGC222 said:

He likes his new accommodation and has financial security now with sale of his home.

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This is a major plus.

Do you have anything in writing where the company told you there was no further payment due? In any event, they should clearly have known from their own systems that the surviving spouse was entitled to continue to receive a pension payment.

I think you should point out the company have been majorly remiss and that their failure to properly deal with the issue caused a significant life change for the surviving spouse and ask them what they are going to do to compensate. See where it goes from there.

I'm not sure if there is a UK ombudsman as we have here, but check that out & keep it in your back pocket.

I might have mis-read your post - did the pension arise from a UK pension provider?

My mother in law worked in Ireland and would have paid the pension directly from her Irish salary. The company she worked for was a UK retail chain. I presume it would fall under the Irish ombudsman.

I unfortunately only have the date and time I made the call when cancelling her pension payment when I pulled out all her paperwork. It was a strange time trying to deal with all her admin at the start of the first covid lockdown it was difficult to get anyone even on the phone to speak to about the pension and I presume this is why we got the wrong information.

I just feel I may have failed him during my accidental role as executor and want to get the best outcome for him now.

Sometimes things happen for a reason and work out - he's happy where is he now and it will work well for him as he gets older. Would he be any happier in the old family home, with all his memories, in there on its own as some of the jobs and maintenance begins to get beyond him? Fair play to him for sorting this move - so many people leave it too late and cause hassle for themselves and their families by staying too long.

Some compensation sounds reasonable for the delay in payment so ask the company and see what they say first before going elsewhere. If they offer nothing then there's the financial services and pensions ombudsman to try next.

Doing your best for him now isn't really the extra few quid compensation though - he'll have his pension, the house sale money, the new pension from this - he should be fine financially. Given he asked you for this help he might be open to your support just ensuring that the money he has gets kept/invested safely and wisely and he has easy access to it etc - and encourage him to spend some and enjoy it.

The companies pension department/administrator are the only ones who've done anything wrong here - not you.

OGC222 said:

I just can’t help but feel if he had known about the private pension at the time would this have been factor in his decision to sell the family home.

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It seems unlikely it would have been a major factor if it was a small pension. Maintaining a house on your own into old age must be daunting, he probably had multiple reasons for wanting the move and might have had some concerns about how to communicate that to family, the financial reason is an easy way to explain the decision. Definitely not your fault, as a couple presumably they had a long time to plan these details out themselves too.

thank you for reassuring comments, yes I also believe the senior apartments are a better living arrangement for him and he is financially secure, I often wonder why DCC don't advertised it more, but that's another topic! I will at least explore the option of compensation for him which I feel with make the situation somewhat fairer.