Winter Fuel Allowance for all Expat Pensioners

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4398847/All-OAP-expats-can-claim-200-winter-fuel-payout-after-Strasbourg-ruling.html

This would be wonderful, and I could certainly do with it. Back Dated would be something else. This is always possible as some of us appear to have been Illegally deprived.

Sabot wrote:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4398847/All-OAP-expats-can-claim-200-winter-fuel-payout-after-Strasbourg-ruling.html

This would be wonderful, and I could certainly do with it. Back Dated would be something else. This is always possible as some of us appear to have been Illegally deprived.

Hello, ma petite, I have been living in either Austria or here for 7 years now and I have been getting the allowance every year. I thought it was only the Aussies and Kiwis who didn't get it. It was £250 but went down £50 last year due to austerity. But £200 is a good sum and it usually gets to your account in November (at least mine does). I hope you do get a backdate. LL

ETA: Just read it - I see you had to have turned 60/65 and be living in the UK to get it, so I assume you left there before you reached that age?

Lamplighter wrote:

Sabot wrote:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4398847/All-OAP-expats-can-claim-200-winter-fuel-payout-after-Strasbourg-ruling.html

This would be wonderful, and I could certainly do with it. Back Dated would be something else. This is always possible as some of us appear to have been Illegally deprived.

Hello, ma petite, I have been living in either Austria or here for 7 years now and I have been getting the allowance every year. I thought it was only the Aussies and Kiwis who didn't get it. It was £250 but went down £50 last year due to austerity. But £200 is a good sum and it usually gets to your account in November (at least mine does). I hope you do get a backdate. LL

At the moment you don't get it if you left UK before you were entitled to a State Pension, LL. Most unfair, I think. But someone has challenged this, and apparently won.
I hardly dare hope for the £200 a year. A back date would be beyond my wildest dreams.
I did actually apply for it at the time but was refused. Now, I just need more information about how to apply again.

Try here for details:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/moneytaxandbenefits/benefitstaxcreditsandothersupport/inretirement/dg_10018657

Thanks, LL. This would make a big difference to me, and I could stop worrying about how much heating I am using when it is very cold.
Already, ExPats living in Europe don't get any means tested benefits, so what with the plummett in the Exchange Rate, these last five years have been a bit of a struggle.
I cut one of my two remaining Lawns yesterday and came home knackered. Almost time to give it up, but I worry. I still have to sort out my Fosse Septique, and God knows how much that is going to cost. But any Back Dating would take care of that.

I am not really complaining because I would much rather live here. But all State Pensioners paid for stuff like this, and I don't understand why people like me should have to fight for a measly £200 just because we would rather live somewhere else.

I have never qualified for any means tested benefits, in fact for any at all, except for the Winter Fuel one, so I do hope you get it, and back dated! LL

I don't mind too much about the Means Tested Benefits, LL. Other than I think it is disgraceful that any Pensioners should be forced to be Means Tested. But The Fuel Allowance isn't Means Tested, and the trick they pulled to stop people like me getting it was low to say the least. We paid into their Scheme without right of choice. Where we live when we claim it should be irrelevant, and it would seem that Strasbourg agree.
Doncha just luv Yuman Rites.

Incidentally, during the years when I might have saved for a Private Pension I was paying vast sums of money to get my sons decently educated because The State System was crap. And after that I was running a Small Business, working often 14/7 to carry the very large Interest Rates in those days. I was a walking wreck by the time I came here.