Just to say that if you have to send important papers (birth certs etc) to the UK, you need to send them LRAR International and after just 13 days since sending my pension claim papers plus the all important original papers, they were returned to me by LRAR International from the UK this morning upon signature to the postman with a note saying they had been copied by the overseas pensions office. That I did not expect and had forgotten about them, so a nice surprise. I would add though that I was informed earlier this year that to claim my pension from the UK I would be invited by letter four months previous to it coming into force. Suffice to say, nothing has ever come so I sent all the paperwork and it seems they are working on it. If you are four months from claiming your UK rights, don’t wait for them to contact you, get it off now.
Me neither and I forgot too. The good news was it was backdated and I ended up with a little windfall 
Was this to get your UK state pension, OH was told when getting a figure for monthly amount from DWP that payment woukd automatically start now that they had our French adress and bank details, incorrect!?
Royal Mail have proposed strike action throughout November and possibly into December so you might want to hold off sending mail and parcels to the UK until it’s over.
I had to download about 20 pages to fill in with all sorts of details because I have lived here for so long and yes, basic state UK pension rights. I was informed a year or two ago about the amount I would receive from all my contributions since age 15/16. I had to send the originals of birth certificates, marriage certificate, husband’s french death cert, a current french bank RIB and I also sent some old wage slips and P60. Don’t rely on them to contact you or pay automatically just because they have some details, follow the instructions on the UK government pensions page for OVERSEAS CLAIMANTS and it must be approx four months before your birthday when you are eligible that you send these off, sooner than that and they don’t get processed as fast!. I never received the promised automatic invitation to apply they wrote about when I informed them earlier this year of my new address either, so don’t rely on that coming. I also sent everything by LRAR International so that I had proof and of course my precious documents they insist on having.
What is this…recorded delivery.?
Yes but now the UK is no longer in the EU you have to ask for an International form to send post. Very important if you need to furnish documents for pensions, banking etc and of course, your passport renewal.
When i did a UK passport renewal last yrear it was all on line, sent nothing.
Spoke to a friend living here who applied for state pension last year, he can’t recall having to send any docs and certainly didn’t fill in 20 page document
When my wife and I reached pension age we had none of the above kerfuffle, admittedly it was some time ago.
You have to send your expired one back, hence the LRAR as proof it was sent as things do go missing.
Yes its all changed apparently with the age increase. It was in total 23 pages I had to print out, a couple were instructions but it was a hefty pile to return and of course, the originals of the certs demanded and other previous proof of employment etc and the death certificate for my husband who died here. Again if not sent LRAR you have no recourse or proof it went if it gets lost. Maybe you applied for your pension before moving to France which means you did not go via the Overseas dept at Wolverhampton??
I too had no documents to fill in, I applied by phone 4 months before I retired , they then sent me a code to sign into my pensions portal at .gov.uk, I then filled in bank details online and havent missed a payment since. At the time I was resident in uk and came to france a few weeks after sorting out my pension, once I had received my first pension I came to France knowing I had secured the pension. My Army pension and Civil Engineering pension also kicked in without any problems.
I think it must be the overseas pensions dept then who demand all this paperwork. One of the questions it asks is if I had been in hospital in the UK since leaving and the dates etc, lots of questions about previous UK employment, addresses, claiming family allowance etc which a UK resident would not have had to answer. They obviously have access to all previous UK NI contributions history as I had a list of dates and employers sent some time ago, the same as the french pensions people have sent me too but only with the french employers named.
If you drew family allowance you can be credited with years of NI contributions - it’s called Home Responsibilities Protection.