A question on pensions

Hi everyone.

Can someone tell me where "Irene's" post went? apparently it seemed to answer everyone's questions and had a useful link? BTW I've just been contacted by AVIVA ......again.

You can get two state pensions plus any other pensions according to entitlement Valerie. The Carsat or French pensions people will send you pension forecasts several years before the due date. Strange you haven't heard from them before. I will get my French state pension from next january 1st tho' I first received notification of the amounts etc at least three years ago. My Merchant Navy pension comes out in a few weeks time on my 61st birthday but I will have to wait until january 2020 for my UK state pension thanks to the new UK regulations which means an extra seven-year wait for me plus a private works UK pension at the same time.

I've been communicating with both the UK & French pensions people on a regular basis over the past couple of years and the French version the Carsat has been super efficient while the Uk equivalent in Newcastle have been tedious to work with, everything takes so long !

I'mm not due to retire for 4/5 years but have already received estimations of what I will receive for both my State and private pensions here in France.

Hello, John,

I worked in France for 14 years before I reached retirement age 3 years ago, so my situation was rather similar to yours.

What happens is that you get 2 state pensions - 1 from France and 1 from the UK.

If my experience is anything to go by, you won't get to know how much French retirement pension you'll be entitled to until 4 months after your retirement date.

I hope this helps you.

Valerie

I'm up to it John but it's pretty complicated for me with the added problem of my son being a risk of a destructive hereditary disease which means he could pass away before me ! I've made provision for him succeeding me but that may not be the case when the day comes.

Plus, not being morbid but realistic, you never know what's around the corner...

After the nightmare I went through on my wife’s succession I can understand your reticence and I had a very caring and kind notaire. I do need to give it consideration but just not up to it yet.

That's the big problem John. My good lady was only 56 and never even had a sniff of a pension so all those years of work count for nothing it seems. She managed to secure a small Teaching Pension when it was cetain she would never be able to work again at 54 but I have no entitlement to a spouses payment apparently. My son is in the same boat as your daughter but maybe with more complications seeing he is anglo-french - it just doubles red tape....

I try not to think about what could/will happen tho' I suppose that's running away from the problem !

The tricky thing with pensions and lump sums vs annuity is how long is one going to live as one’s pension dies with one. My wife was seven years younger than me and assuming females live (guess) five yeras longer than men I had my pensions all geared to keep her comfortable for a minimum of twelve yeras after I’d gone to the big car showroom in the sky. Sadly she passed away in Dcember '13 at only 53. Now my big concern is how I ensure my daughter and not the State gets whatever I have over when my time comes.

I wish I'd delayed taking my UK pension till I was 65,but at the time the little I was getting was useful.For me here,being self employed,I had to wait till 65;but I continue working,not earning much though.So I have to still pay pension contributions but the amount I'm getting now will not increase. If you're an independant worker its a mine field,with I don't know how many different caisses de retraite,for all the various professions.I've lost 10 years due to some screw up with Urssaf,and I'm not alone.

I heard the other day about taking the lump sum of your pension,does anyone know about that?Its never been proposed to me.

In three and a half years I shall begin to receive a pension from another EU member state, I deferred that from 60 to 70 so that I could get bigger payments that include the accumulated interest. I would have been able to have a lump sum instead. However, I had a letter back in 2013 telling me that it would be paid through the French pension system and my fears are now twofold. If there happened to be the famous referendum in the UK and they left the EU it could get 'sticky'. The flip side of the coin is that, forgetting the EU issue, it comes to that point in time there is the EU's Council of Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs' 2013 proposal for a 'mobility directive' that would mean taking pensions with us, in short having them administered by the country we live in. That is being worked on and it looks like a possible introduction in 2016 or 2017. There are already bilateral, trilateral and multilateral agreements within the EEA to which the UK is signed up.

So, sooner or later we will be getting pensions paid where we are considered to be resident. It will mean the end of UK pensions into UK bank accounts, a fixed exchange rate has been proposed and so on. The kind of mess Suzy Davis mentions is a high risk which I am not looking forward to, thus avoiding playing along with the present proposition of state pension administered by France and paid in Euros. Something 'smells' wrong, very fishy in fact. Ironically, I am not somebody who is paranoid about bureaucracy but it simply strikes me that every government seems to be all out to save money. Shaving a bit off a lot of pensions seems just about a perfect part of that, think the chicanery to kill off the Winter Fuel Payment which has now been cast in stone by parliament although the premise on which it is based for France is crooked.

Hi John,

I qualify for UK & French pensions private as well as state. A total of four pensions...eventually.My first pension starts in six weeks and I will receive three more pensions over the next five years.

I can go through it with you here on the open forum or by PM or by telephone if that would be easier.

thanks that clarifies the situation ..

Theodora,I'm more or less in the same situation,except I already claim a pension here.I was always told it wasn't possible to combine the two when I applied for the UK pension.I worked for 16yrs in England and get less than for the 10 yrs I'm allowed to claim here.The system here is such a mess I can't see them managing to sort it out with another country.

Thanks for the link, Irene. I'll add it to Useful Links (Official Sites and Finance I think) asap.

Thank you very much for this, Irene. My questions are answered.

I have been claiming my UK pension since the age of 60, paid into my UK bank account. I will be 66 this year and I am now at the point of applying for my (very small) French pension. I have been told that I can submit my entire working history, both UK and France and that my pension will then be calculated as if it had all been done in France, my current UK pension deducted from the total and any short fall made up by France. Has anyone else been in this situation?

I don't know if this helps but when my husband reached the age for his UK pension, last year,he was asked to complete a form with his work history. It said if he was working in France at that time and paying contributions,he should return the form to his French office. By then my husband had stopped all work through ill health and completed his'succession' forms as an auto entrepreneur so we sent ours back to the UK. We decided to ignore the few payments he had made, because he was registered in France for such a relatively short time and made all the necessary UK payments of 30 years. I can't tell you what would have happened next but I imagine other SFN readers have been through the system and can explain.

So how do we marry the wo - I also read that women get 2 years deducted for each child (in France).

France 62 but changing and depends on your job, UK 65 but moving to 67 i believe