Social Welfare - claim on estate Non-contributory pension

Executor20

Hi,
I am the executor of my late father's will.
The Dept Social Welfare have issued a claim on his estate for non-contributory pension payments.

Dad saved most of his pension while his family provided for his living and medical expenses. Dad lived alone.The pension accumulated in his bank account over the years.... however you are not allowed to receive non-contributory pension if there is over €20K cash/liquid assets. DSW are looking for pension payments to be returned to them for the past number of years.

Has anyone experience of this situation?
How open is DSW to a partial settlement? Am compiling details of living and medical expenses paid by his family.
Has anyone experience of the appeals process?

Executor20

Executor20 wrote: »

Hi,
I am the executor of my late father's will.
The Dept Social Welfare have issued a claim on his estate for non-contributory pension payments.

Dad saved most of his pension while his family provided for his living and medical expenses. Dad lived alone.The pension accumulated in his bank account over the years.... however you are not allowed to receive non-contributory pension if there is over €20K cash/liquid assets. DSW are looking for pension payments to be returned to them for the past number of years.

Has anyone experience of this situation?
How open is DSW to a partial settlement? Am compiling details of living and medical expenses paid by his family.
Has anyone experience of the appeals process?

Have they actually asked for money back? You are allowed savings. Your payment is just reduced accordingly. It’s normal procedure for a statement of assets to be sought before the estate is disposed of.

Losty Dublin

A non contributory pension is means tested to establish the level of payment doe to an applicant. If your father had means at the time of application that weren't declared or if he developed or came into means during the lifetime of his claim then they should have been notified to the Dept so they could reassess his entitlement. This also applies if you lose some of your means so it can work both ways.

You mentioned that you were helping him out with day to day expenses. However, if he was getting all manner of bills paid for him and the pension was building up unspent, well you can see how that may look on the surface.

All you can do initially is to find out details of how they arrived at whatever figure that they came up with. Once you get a breakdown then you can do some crunching yourself to see just how accurate or otherwise their figures may be. Obviously you will know more about your Dad's circumstances so you should have a little bit of leverage as regards information that may relieve the burden here.

For the record there is a Social Welfares Appeals Office. An appeal won't be entertained until you have dealt with the original claim and are unhappy with it's decision. But yes they are an option should you feel hard done by.

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Also, if you fail with appeals to welfare you may be able to make a complaint to the Ombudsman. You will have to exhaust all appeals within welfare and have the written records to show this before the ombudsman will consider it