Dads Pension credit.

[starling]

My 80 year old dad has had a letter from the pension credit people

asking questions about personal pensions he receives.

 

 

He receives £12 ish pension credit a week and a personal pension of £50 a month from a previous employer, who we don't know.

 

 

The problem we are having is that dad has Alzheimers and vascular dementia

and can't answer the questions on the 12 page form he has received.

 

 

They are saying if he doesn't fill in the forms they will stop the credits.

 

 

we are worried they may stop them anyway as he is in receipt of £50 a month that he hasn't declared.

 

 

Are they going to make him pay back the credits?

 

 

We have no idea how long he has been getting the work based pension and nor does he.

 

 

Please help as dad is very confused and upset by all this and has had phone calls from the DWP demanding he fill in the forms.

[honeybee13]

Hello there.

 

You say you don't know who the ex-employer is, but do you know who's paying money into your Dad's bank account, maybe an insurance company? They should be able to give you information.

 

Do you have power of attorney or could you ring them and get him to give you authority to speak to them on his behalf at the beginning of the call?

 

HB

[starling]

He gets a cheque every month and he puts it in the bank. I've not seen the cheques.

 

 

No we don't have power of attorney,

 

 

my mum still lives with him and she has taken over the money although her and dad don't get on and live virtually separate lives.

 

 

Mum is not much better than dad and has always had problems with reading and writing, she can get by though.

 

 

We don't live close to them and only get there on a few occasions a year,

 

 

my sister lives near but doesn't like dealing with this kind of thing.

 

 

She doesn't trust these kinds of people and refuses to deal with them.

[honeybee13]

I can see that makes life difficult. But if a cheque arrives every month, it should have a company or insurance company name on it, I would have thought?

 

Or a name on the accompanying letter sending the cheque. Do you parents keep paperwork?

 

HB

[starling]

No one sees the cheque, dad takes it straight to the bank. He worries about these things and has to do it immediately or it bothers him. They shred their paperwork as they also worry about people getting hold of their details. It's really hard to get dad to understand what we want from him, he gets very confused and upset.

Do you think they are trying to make him pay back the pension credit he's been getting? He doesn't claim benefits for his illness as he doesn't need the money, he's happy with the pension. If he has to pay back the credits he will have to claim benefits to afford it. He didn't do anything deliberately, he just doesn't understand all of this.

[ssett]

starling

If your Dad has Alzheimers have a look at this forum as well as the help you can get from CAG

http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/forum.php

 

Legal and financial issues

http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/forumdisplay.php?60-Legal-and-financial-issues

[starling]

Thank you for the links. Does anyone know if the DWP are fishing for info in order to stop/make them pay back the credits?

[honeybee13]

Thank you for the links. Does anyone know if the DWP are fishing for info in order to stop/make them pay back the credits?

 

I imagine the DWP are trying to establish what he's entitled to. If he can't give them the information, it's going to be hard to prove his point. Is there no way to short circuit this and find out the name of the company who pay the pension? What about his bank statements?

 

I don't know if AgeUK could give you some help. I rang them about my mother's problems and they were very helpful.

 

HB

[Mr.P]

No we don't have power of attorney,

 

We don't live close to them and only get there on a few occasions a year,

 

I would strongly urge you to apply for Power of Attorney for both health and financial matters before your father's condition deteriorates further. Once PoA is in place, you can delegate responsibilities to others in order to manage day to day affairs and still be in a position to make key decisions. You do not want the local authority being appointed as attorney by the Court of Protection under any circumstances.

[anmarj]

Thank you for the links. Does anyone know if the DWP are fishing for info in order to stop/make them pay back the credits?

 

the DWP will have received information from HMRC so they will know, if the pension has never been declared then there has been an overpayment regardless. Pension Credit is means tested and all forms of income is taken into account. If at a later date it has been found that there is undeclared income, then they will investigate to see when it started, how is paid etc. Remember that most private/works pensions can be taken from approximately 50 years of age. If somebody has been made appointee the DWP may give them the name of the company that is appearing under HMRC. DWP can raise an overpayment based on HMRC info, but the HMRC info is Gross amounts and does not show what is actually paid to the customer after tax, so it means any overpayment is inflated and you would then have to prove the correct amounts paid to make sure the overpayment is correct ie if the entitlement is £70 per month but the customer would receive £50 after tax, but informaiton is not supplied and DWP used the HMRC the overpayment would be based on the £70 per month figure and any overpayment that is disputed you would have to prove they only got £50.

 

If your dad is entitled to AA then apply for it, utlimately it does not change the outcome and is totally irrelvant to Pension Credit overpayment. If your dad gets AA ,your mum could get underlying entitlement to Carers Allowance which would increase the applicate amount, which may still give them some entitlement

 

I imagine the DWP are trying to establish what he's entitled to. If he can't give them the information, it's going to be hard to prove his point. Is there no way to short circuit this and find out the name of the company who pay the pension? What about his bank statements?

 

I don't know if AgeUK could give you some help. I rang them about my mother's problems and they were very helpful.

 

HB

 

OP stated that the dad gets a cheque and bank straight away so nobody see it.

[honeybee13]

the DWP will have received information from HMRC so they will know, if the pension has never been declared then there has been an overpayment regardless. Pension Credit is means tested and all forms of income is taken into account. If at a later date it has been found that there is undeclared income, then they will investigate to see when it started, how is paid etc. Remember that most private/works pensions can be taken from approximately 50 years of age. If somebody has been made appointee the DWP may give them the name of the company that is appearing under HMRC.

 

If your dad is entitled to AA then apply for it, utlimately it does not change the outcome and is totally irrelvant to Pension Credit. If your dad gets AA ,your mum could get underlying entitlement to Carers Allowance which would increase the applicate amount, which may still give them some entitlement

 

 

 

OP stated that the dad gets a cheque and bank straight away so nobody see it.

 

I realise that, I'm just trying to see if there are ways to get hold of the cheque or maybe bank account details to ascertain where the pension is from.

 

HB

[anmarj]

Another thought, if they claim any housing benefit/council reduction? Is is declared to them, if so, they may give the name of the provider