I realised after I’d posted you would have already thought of that, sorry!
I just find it totally unbelievable that in this electronic age, they’ve pushed us all into, HMRC are being such pillocks!
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I just sent a letter.
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By no means guaranteed! You’d be surprised how much doesn’t occur to me these days 
Thanks for the information @CaptainMorgan - I may well try that if I can’t find the paying-in slips.
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How far short are you of the 18 months? And do they then have to pay you statutory interest back from date 0 or only for days fter the 18 months ? If it’s just before 18 months, I’d leave it till it is 18.
As I understand it, they only pay FROM 18 months (not back dated) but of course I could have got that completely wrong.. I shall just be relieved to get the wretched thing and, hopefully, never have to deal with HMRC again (although my partner is just about to hit the same ghastly problem of not being able to get a pension from his pension pots and therefore having to withdraw the lot. All we wanted was a pension…
Guess what arrived in the post from HMRC today? A cheque for many thousands of pounds. 
OK, I’ve had to get a friend to post me a paying-in book from the UK and now I have to post the cheque and slip to the bank (and have everything crossed that it arrives) but we may be on the home straight. HMRC have only been sitting on my money since July 2024 …
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Is your UK bank not none of the ones that will pay in a cheque just by you uploading a copy of it into their app ?
I don’t think so. I don’t have any banking apps anyway and logging into my account certainly doesn’t give me that option. I did talk to them and they said that posting it was the only possibility.
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Interesting. As you may recall I’m also claiming back emergency tax from cashing in two private pensions.
Imagine my surprise when a week or two back HMRC put many thousands of pounds into my UK bank account, having previously told me that my first FFI (received by them on 09/09/2025) wouldn’t get looked at until June 2026 & before they’d even received the second FFI!
The amount involved was way more than claimed via the first FFI but significantly less than both reclaims combined.
I know of no other possible reason for the arrival of this money. I have asked HMRC for information, but I’m not holding my breath for a quick reply.
Their payment reference included my NI number, which may or may not point things in a certain direction…?
That really is bizarre @badger! And galling for me because they flatly refused to transfer the money into my bank account so I had to cope with all this cheque palaver. Judging by @george’s experiences too, which were different again, their processes do seem to be a bit…err…random?
Might depend which tax office you come under.
Which is odd if your bank account is already logged on your HMRC user space.
I wasn’t aware that was a possibility in the UK.
I’m talking direct to HMRC in Newcastle AFAIA.
I haven’t had anything to do with a ‘local’ UK tax office for decades.
Which it was, of course! And plastered all over the FFI, and mentioned every single time I rang them. Bastards…
What a strange post code… 
I thought every Newcastle post code had to start with Y - I.
(say it out loud)
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This rings bells. HMRC did something similar when making a substantial refund to me. Either they (HMRC humans) or their IT systems unilaterally decided, at the same time that they would remove an NT code from another non UK taxable pension and retrospectively tax me on it. That created a significant difference (in my case) between the correct refund and what they actually paid me. I sincerely hope that they aren’t doing something similar with you? I assume you can check your NT codes online if you have an HMRC account, should you suspect that issue is the culprit. Hopefully, if you are actually speaking to them, an explanation will eventually reveal the cause of the lower refund.
Congratulations @AngelaR on extracting the refund cheque from HMRC after such a long campaign to obtain it. Their inconsistencies in paying directly to some accounts or issuing cheques to others is frustrating and baffling.
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The plot has just thickened. I don’t think it’s related to the issue that you have kindly outlined above, but thanks for the info.
To recap, my first FFI was received by HMRC om 09/09/2025.
The second was logged onto their system on 27/10/2025.
Today I received a letter from HMRC (dated 23/10/2025 i.e. before they had my second FFI) written solely in reference to the pension dealt with by my first FFI but clearly using the total of funds from both schemes that I have had payouts from. The letter was to provide an explanation about the refund that I recently received & outlined in my previous post.
I have reverse engineered all the figures & can see exactly how they got to the refund that I have received, BUT…it is still short of the total amount of the emergency tax paid to HMRC by the two pension providers. It turns out that this is due to them levying 20% basic rate tax on the amount left above the personal allowance of £12 570.
As I am very much not a UK taxpayer I beleive that HMRC should not be charging me any income tax whatsoever as I will be declaring the pension funds here in France.
Has anybody got any ideas before I start trying to speak to HMRC, again…
That is absolutely correct. The UK has zero rights to any tax on private and state pensions received from the date you became French tax resident, and must refund you in full, any and all UK tax withheld from that date. The tax treaty is crystal clear that France has exclusive rights to tax you from the above date. This is black and white- there is no ambiguity whatsoever about the correct tax treatment. Best of luck with your HMRC discussions. Do let us know how you get on.
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“NE mon.”
You probably already have this, but just in case here is the relevant tax treaty article dealing with private sector and state pensions……
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That is very useful @George1 , along with your previous (& very clear)answer.
I’ll be on to HMRC a bit later.