pensions

[georgeg]

update to my previous question it was a group personal pension where both employer &employee contributions have not been forwarded to the pension company although the employee contribution was shown stopped on the wage slips as stated previously the company is now in adminstration with apparently not enough assets to honour these payments wil the government step in to cover the 2 months of april & may. does anybody out there know the answer or is this money lost for ever!!!!!?

[derbyram]

I'm afraid that the only way your contributions will be made is if there are enough assets left over once the taxman has had his share. The government have made a policy in the past of not intervening to cover any shortfall - although I believe a case is currently going through courts to force them to change this although although that was more to do with losing a pension in it's entirity rather than just some of the contributions.

[Postie]

There is no reason why the government i.e the taxpayer should make up your pension contributions, it's not our fault that your company went bust or that the officials couldn't be trusted, however, if you can find a solicitor who will give you 30 mins free advice - do it - there are still some around who will. If there are enough ex employees around, band together and engage a solicitor to make a group action on your behalf. You may well be more entitled to the assets of the company than you think and the fact that they are not willing to make up the shortfall in favour of other noisier creditors is not your problem. If your pension contributions have been stolen as you say they were, the actions of the company officials were totally illegal and they should be dealt with by the courts but meanwhile, make a claim against the assets. Get professional advice.

[Quizmonster]

It certainly looks as if I was right at least to suspect criminal activity on the company's part in my answer to your previous question on this topic. If nothing else, they would appear to have 'stolen' - or otherwise misappropriated - the employees' contributions. (I don't doubt but that lawyers will have a word such as 'malfeasance' to cover the particular situation.)

As I said last time and as Postie says now, there is no real reason why the Government should pay, however.

[enigma]

I would get in touch with your local Citizens Advice Bureau as my local cab office hold a free legal surgery where you can get free legal advice on a certain day of the week for something like a 30-40 mins session and you know that you are not obligated to pay hefty legal fees and that you will be properly advised on the legalities of your predicament. Good luck !