UK pension - buying back years, and what I may be entitled to

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MeathCommute

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Hi. My wife worked as a teacher in NI for 10 years, finishing in 2002, and we checked it out, and she has 14 qualifying pension years (partial years counting as full, and 2 juvenile credits added). We wrote off to the UK Pension section in Newcastle, and we were given details of how to buy back pension years. We can buy back from 2006 to 2018. Total cost is around 8k sterling, and it will double the UK pension when my wife is 67.

So my question is, can she continue to buy years GOING FORWARD, even though she is no longer in the UK? Or can one only buy back the 12 pension years?

We rang Newcastle Pension services today, and the girl on the phone seemed to suggest that we could...but I get the impression that you have to be a UK resident, who is working in the EU, to avail of this, and not if you are an ROI resident. Am I correct?
 
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I certainly bought back years as a UK citizen while ROI resident and self-employed here. But rules do change, so I can't be certain it would still be the same. For example, I was told I could only buy back for 6 years previous.
 
Gervan said:
I certainly bought back years as a UK citizen while ROI resident and self-employed here. But rules do change, so I can't be certain it would still be the same. For example, I was told I could only buy back for 6 years previous.
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Thanks very much Gervan for that. We were given 12 years that we could pay to "buy back years". We decided to purchase a sterling bank draft and "test" the setup by buying back the first of those years (2006-2007). This was last December, and we heard nothing back. So we rang the Pension number in Newcastle yesterday, and we spoke to a girl who looks after this area. She said that they had received the payment (phew) but didn't know where to appropriate it. She asked us had we filled out a form CF83 or read the document NI38. We said that we hadn't. On looking at these forms, it looks to me that these forms are for UK residents, who are working abroad, who wish to keep their UK stamps up. That is not us. We are merely buying back 12 years, on top of the 14 years that my wife worked for when in Northern Ireland. Nothing more. We are Irish citizens. My wife is not going back to NI to work. She worked in NI from 1992 till 2002 as a teacher.
 
Hi Meath commute, you can buy years going forward as my sister currently living in USA has recently applied having been out of UK for past 20 years. The normal criteria is you can only buy back six years then you can apply to pay either class 2 or class 3 national insurance contributiiins ( depending on your current employment cumstances) going forward until she has the required amount for the full ukstate pension which is currently 35 years. Please note if she's buying back years they will quote her for the more expensive class 3 contributions. If you wife has been working in Ireland since her return from UK then she will more than likely Pay class 2 which currently only cost about £150 per year rather than circa 700 per year for class three. You may find that your bill will be way less than 8000. Its a terrific deal, they are worries abiut th effect of Brexit going forward but the worst that can happen is they may do away with the triple lock increase every year but we just have to wait and see that one out. Please note the response time from Newcastle can take anything up to 4 months as they currently incredible slow. Research online as they is a terrific amount of information out there. Many of the forms are available on the HMRC website.
 
She asked us had we filled out a form CF83 or read the document NI38. We said that we hadn't. On looking at these forms, it looks to me that these forms are for UK residents, who are working abroad, who wish to keep their UK stamps up. That is not us. We are merely buying back 12 years, on top of the 14 years that my wife worked for when in Northern Ireland. Nothing more. We are Irish citizens. My wife is not going back to NI to work. She worked in NI from 1992 till 2002 as a teacher.


Our posts have crossed.....you made an error by not reading the CF83 documentation, I don't think you can now pay class two . Those forms on HMRC website are for everyone who worked in UK not just UK resudents. I find it strange that you just send a cheque without first filling up the relevant forms. I hope you get sorted.
 

Many thanks for your very helpful posts. Much appreciated. We got advice on buying back years from a company in Offaly called USP Financial last year. He wrote to the UK Pension office on our behalf and they came back and told us how many pension years we had, and how many years we could buy back. He advised us to write to the Pension board, and send them a sterling draft explaining what it was for. After the phone call to the Pension board yesterday, we are going to write back to them and fill in that CF83 form, and see where it leads us. They have one of our sterling drafts and they haven't applied it yet, and I am anxious to get this sorted. The girl on the phone mentioned the 4 month delay in response, as you yourself have advised. Thanks again for this. Sorry for hijacking multiple threads on this.
 
Print off the CF83 notes and acompanied application form. Specify on the form that you want to pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions. To save time I would advise you to attach proof of your wife's Irish employment history since leaving the UK. My brother went to Irish revenue and got a statement of his employment history going back some years. By doing this it speeds up the whole process much quicker on the Newcastle side. She will need dates/details of all Irish employment to enable her to apply for class 2 contributions.

They will be a box to tick on the form about paying voluntary national insurance going forward. There will sdk hou for bank detsils etc and you can opt to pay monthly ir annually. Tick that box and when you hear back from them in about four months, you should be all sorted. You can phone them after couple months and they will tell yiu an estimated time frame. There's an international no on the HMRC and it gets you through to them much quicker.

The guy you went to should have told you this!
 
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Thanks again. The guy we went through was recommended on the Sunday Indo business page by Charlie Weston. I had originally written to the Pension crowd myself about buying back years, but the letter was ignored. So I went with that recommendation. Cost us around 200 euros for him to get the information for us. In hindsight, I could probably have done it myself. There is a lot of information out there, and helpful people such as yourself on websites like this. We'll fill in that form as you have recommended. The letter we got from the pension service said that the amount per year is only valid till 19th April 2019, and the offer is only good till 19th April 2023. I assume the contribution amount won't get that much higher after the first deadline. I think there is a budget coming up soon in the UK (God help us all, last thing they need given the Brexit fiasco)
 
I went through the process with my brother so familiar with it, that was ridiculous amount of money to pay that advisor for something that's free on AAM
 
MeathCommute said:
So my question is, can she continue to buy years GOING FORWARD, even though she is no longer in the UK? Or can one only buy back the 12 pension years?
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Yes you can buy years going forward.

MeathCommute said:
I get the impression that you have to be a UK resident, who is working in the EU, to avail of this, and not if you are an ROI resident. Am I correct?
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When you say UK resident, I think you mean UK citizen.
But it doesn't matter anyway, it's not based on nationality. The eligibility criteria is that you lived and worked in the UK for three continuous years.
It's also not based on working in the EU; you can pay voluntary contributions from any country in the world.

The EU part of it would only come into consideration if your wife had worked less than 10 years in the UK and wasn't eligible for a UK state pension based on her UK contribution record alone and had to claim a pro-rota pension using her record in other EU states. Alas, this is not the case as your wife worked more than 10 years in Northern Ireland.

Gervan said:
For example, I was told I could only buy back for 6 years previous.
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Normally you can only buy back 6 years.
But with the 2016 pension reforms, the UK gave an extended period of time for people to top-up their contributions.
So one can top-up as far back as the 2006-07 tax year, and they have until April 2023 to do this (but cheaper if done before April 2019).


The application forms are necessary for them to know essential details such as your National Insurance number, employment details, address abroad etc.....

It's a slow process but that NI38 form is really the starting point.


I wouldn't go through a third-party when dealing with a government institution as it will only cost you more time and money for the same outcome.



Yep I would get that form filled in and go from there. It looks like you'll probably miss the April 2019 deadline though as it can take weeks/months to get an application approved.
 
Another quick question please - if my wife has 14 pension years in NI, and around 10 pension years in ROI, can she use her pension years in ROI to top up the UK pension years, instead of paying to buy back pension years in NI? Sorry if that is a stupid question.
 
There are no stupid questions when it comes to money.

Do you mean transfer her 10 Irish years to the UK system? My understanding is that you cannot 'transfer' social insurance contributions from one state to another.

You also cannot use the same contribution twice for two different PRSI systems.

But none of your wife's UK or Irish contributions will go to waste (under current rules).

As things stand as of today, I believe that your wife is currently entitled to 14th/35 of the UK pension, based on her UK standalone record, (you can comfirm that with hmrc), and also entitled to her Irish state pension, the amount depending on her record here at retirement age (the Irish pension rules are due to change significantly in the next couple of years).
 
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Thanks so much Lisboa. You are correct. She is getting 14/35th of a UK pension as it stands. She worked in NI for 10 years, but they count parts of a year as a full year, so that brings it up to 12, and she gets 2 juvenile credits on top as well, bringing the total up to 14.
I am happy to buy back pension years in the UK in order to boost that up to 26/35th (our offer letter says we can buy back 2006 to 2018 on top. She worked in NI from 1992 to 2002.). And we will explore filling in the last 9 years after we do that.

I'm not being greedy, but I am just AMAZED that she can get a FULL UK pension and FULL Irish pension. I know there are tax considerations, but I am not afraid of those. Thanks again Lisboa
 
Pension systems are designed for citizens who live and work in one country - so those who have lived and worked in a number of countries can profit from the lax rules made up at the setting up of the ssytem. Not many people would be eligible to both a full Irish and UK pension but if you are one of them, then that's your good luck.

The rules are changing to take account of the increasing cost of longevity and I suspect that those who worked in both countries will not be treated as nicely in the future as they have been up to now. Why the UK continues to allow you to buy back years is a mystery but it is one of the best investments around - well, unless the £ sinks without a trace following BREXIT
 
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