UK and France in talks to end pension worry
FRANCE and the UK are in talks to end the need for British pensioners to have ‘life certificate’ forms signed and posted back to ‘prove they are still alive’. Pensioners living outside the UK receive the forms every couple of years and they must be signed by someone who has known them for at least two years and who is of “good standing in the community”.
Aimed at saving money by avoiding payment to people who are deceased, the UK announced a significant increase in their use in the 2013 Autumn Statement – from 14% to 100% of pensioners over a two-year period. The Department of Work and Pensions also replied to a Freedom of Information request that in 2014-15 it sent out more than 69,000 to pensioners in France. However, reader Ray Catlin in Brittany, tells us life certificates are not sent to Britons in Malta and Spain due to ‘data-matching’ which allows information on pensioner deaths to be shared by these countries and the UK.
The FOI response said negotiations were under way to see if this could be done in France but the DWP could not give Connexion any update except to say “talks are in progress”. A DWP spokesman said they send life certificates every 22 months to retired British people living outside the UK in a country not covered by a data matching agreement.
Mr Catlin said: “I cannot be alone among expats in France in feeling such a system [life certificates] is not the way for the UK to conduct its relations with retired Brits living in France.”
Readers have written to us about the inconvenience of finding someone to sign the form – some in smaller communes went to their mairie – and one reader said the UK authorities
initially refused his wife’s form as she had not ticked a box specifying her sex.
