PC and deferred income

A client, 68,  opted not to take a private pension but defer it .

PC are assessing his income as though he was in receipt of it - any ideas on how to challenge this decision?

Any successful tactics stategies used?

Thanks in advance,

Toby

Is it available to him upon application?  How old is he?

Yes it is avaialble to him and hes ( still ) 68 (sorry)

Toby

Sorry, I tried to edit that bit but the connection here in Singapore is a bit iffy atm.

Is he older than the age that the scheme normally expects him to take benefits.

Should the state (us) pay him to defer his pension so that he can get more capital or income later?

He could take the OP- he was not below the age at which it was normally taken.

Toby

Regulation 18 of the State Pension Credit Regulations deals with notional income - ie, income a person does not actually have but is to be treated as belonging to him.

Reg 18 (1D) says: “A claimant who has reached the qualifying age shall be treated as having income from an occupational pension scheme which he elected to defer, but only from the date on which it could be expected to be acquired if a claim were made.”

Essentially this is the usual notional income rule for all means-tested benefits: if you have an absolute right to take the money you are treated as if you were getting it; if however there is any discretion which means that the holder of the fund can lawfully decide not to pay it (eg say early payment on redundancy or medical grounds outside the terms of the scheme), then you are not treated as having it as there is no guarantee you would get it if you applied.

Any definition on ‘electing to defer’? I have a client on PC whose occupational pension ‘normal retirement’ age is 65. He is 63 and retired from work on ill health grounds at 55. Unknown to him (the Pension Fund transferred to a new company) he was eligible to claim his occ pen from the age of 55 (not just on health grounds), albeit with penalties for claiming before the ‘normal retirement age’. Pension Service has reduced his PC after seeing his occ pen docs, we assume on the grounds of notional income (although I may be giving them too much credit for making a considered decision and may just be one of their usual **** ups). My understanding (and the DMG seems to back this up) is if you wait until your scheme’s normal retirement date you haven’t deferred claiming your occ pen, even if you could have claimed a lower pension from an earlier date. My colleague has had a similar case and we were wondering if something is going on in the PS around this or if we are just being paranoid (or both).

I’m tempted to look more at ‘could be expected to be acquired’.

It doesn’t say ‘could be acquired’ and I’d argue that it’s distinguished by the normal age of retirement.

I had a similar situation with a case recently and contacted our local Pension Centre liaison officer for clarification. She informed me that if an occ pen is available to a client - even if claiming it would incur a penalty - the Pension Service will treat it as notional income if the client does not claim it.
Hardly fair, but not surprising I guess.

Pete Jayes
Older Persons Outreach Worker/Home Visitor