Question re Widows Pension

[MartinBev58]

A lady I know has asked me this question I know and I do not know the answer.

Her husband passed away in December and his pension has been stopped totally in spite of the fact a letter was issued by the trustees saying that there is a widows pension payable to his wife. This letter was issued when the husband first joined the scheme.
The trustees have stated that they wish to see the probate and at that point the pension will be re started and the arrears paid. Probate could however take some months to come through.

Fortunately this lady has got her own occupational pension and some savings.

She wants to know if it is normal not to pay a widows ocupational pension until after probate is seen by the trustees and if she did not have her own savings is help available other than from relatives etc.

Also there is is a statement in the letter received from the trustees stating a widows pension is payable at the discretion of the trustees and this clause was not in any of the paperwork the husband had.

Does this mean if the pension fund gets short of money in the future could the pension be stopped and can they suddenly put this clause in a letter to her.

Martin

[boxtops]

It all depends on the terms of the scheme, IMO - this is obviously an occupational pension and the terms may vary. It is correct that the man's pension stops when he dies, then any widow's entitlement will start. I don't understand the probate part but that's my ignorance of the arrangements, not that I mean that it's wrong.
The widow's pension being discretionary doesn't mean they could stop it once started, IMO - it means that it's not a right to grant it in the first place, and under certain circumstances the Trustees might agree not to pay it (but again the pension terms need to be seen, not guessed at).

[tamborine]

If this her husband's company pension scheme, trustees (others in the scheme) need to agree the payout. The reason they want proof of probate is to view the Will and providos therein.

[DrFilth]

as boxtops has said they are all vary, if they were together went he went into the scheme she should be ok

[woofgang]

She need to look at the terms of the scheme as they all vary. Has she actually spoken to anyone at the scheme as opposed to communicating by letter?

[KPritchard]

Martin

I did work in pensions for a time. At the start we wanted to see the probate or letters of administration to make sure there was no evidence of a divorce or a marriage beaking up.
This practice was discontinued as in a lot of cases the husbands / wifes half of the house was left to the son / daughter and in the odd case all the money belonging to the deceased was left to the son / daughter as well so letters of administration / probate did not really prove anything but some schemes have continued to require probate.
I suppose if the beneficiary of a will was somebody outside the family enquiries should have been made but this never happened while I was employed there.
With regard to the discretion of the trustee to pay the pension we had a case where a member of the pension scheme passed away 5 says after they were married and the scheme provided a widows pension for the wife from when he would have been 60.
We talked about this and as it was concluded that as there was no evidence to suggest at the time of the marriage the employee would pass away the widows pension would be paid.
The verdict may have been different if the marriage took place on the members death bed.
With regard to financial help being available to a widow while awaiting probate I do not think there is any. When my mother passed away I phoned about her state pension and was asked if there was money within the family to pay for the funeral but we were not offered any other help.

K Pritchard

[woofgang]

has she applied for widow's benefit? now called bereavement allowance
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/np-45.pdf

[chrissa1]

When my husband died last year, the private company that paid him a small pension monthly just required a copy of his Death Certificate, then his pension payment was paid to me straightaway.

[KPritchard]

Hi Chrissa1

Most of the widows pensions we were dealing with were about £5,000+ and I am going back to the mid 90's.
I do not know if you would think that was small.

[chrissa1]

His Pension was much less than £5000 KP.

[factor-fiction]

Another example of someone posting and then responding under different names