I thought it might be helpful to describe the EU pension claim process with a real-life example - mine!
Background
I worked in Ireland as a student, then 10 years in UK, 20 in France and returned to in Ireland in early 2000s
As per EU rules, I applied for my pensions to the Department of Social Welfare in May 2018, 6 months before my pension date as advised on their website - oops, just given away my age!
Note that I had previously got in touch with the relevant government departments in Ireland, UK and France to get a record of my social insurance records in the 3 countries - and was able to correct them for missing records, etc
From the communications from the different countries, it looks like the Irish processed their end of things, then passed the file onto the UK who in turn passed in on to the French so my claims were processed in a serial manner rather than a parallel fashion.
Ireland
First to get back to me was the Department of Social Welfare in Sligo in mid-June with notification that my claim for a contributory pension was successful and informing me of the amount and payment date - this duly started in November and continues to be paid on a weekly basis in advance
UK
The Department for Work & Pensions in the UK received my claim for a UK State pension in July and as nothing had been heard from them since May, I made a couple of phone calls in October to the Overseas Pension Dept in Newcastle. Following these, my pension payments started in early November. I received a letter in mid-November, dated 31st October, with notification of my pension amounts. Lo and behold, my pension was back-dated to November 2017, and I even got the Christmas 2017 £ 10 bonus! The UK pension is paid every 4 weeks in arrears straight to my Irish bank account
France
The French pension has two elements - a standard State pension similar to the Contributory Irish pension and a Complementary Pension based on your earnings. I had a few letters from the French Social Security in August and September requesting further information for the State pension. Replying to these involved a few telephone calls to France and a visit to our local council office to get a form signed by an official to attest that I as indeed alive and well. As with all French administrative processes, it was a bit laborious filling in the different forms but the letter notifying me of the success of my claim arrived in mid-November and had full details of the computation. The actual payments of the State pension started in early November and were back-dated to 1st June, which was my French pension start date. This pension is paid monthly in arrears to my Irish bank account.
The claim for the Complementary pension has been passed onto the appropriate bodies and I await confirmation and payments - they seem to have a backlog of 4 months, so I don't expect to receive anything till early next year but at least it will be back-dated to 1st June as well. These are paid monthly in advance
Conclusion
My experience is that it pays to make sure your social insurance records are up to date and correct. This can be done well in advance rather than wait till actually making a claim.
The advice to claim up to 6 months in advance is well-founded - my claims were relatively straight-forward.
Now the only worry, all of these payments are funded on as PAYG system, so where will that bring us to in the years to come?
Background
I worked in Ireland as a student, then 10 years in UK, 20 in France and returned to in Ireland in early 2000s
As per EU rules, I applied for my pensions to the Department of Social Welfare in May 2018, 6 months before my pension date as advised on their website - oops, just given away my age!
Note that I had previously got in touch with the relevant government departments in Ireland, UK and France to get a record of my social insurance records in the 3 countries - and was able to correct them for missing records, etc
From the communications from the different countries, it looks like the Irish processed their end of things, then passed the file onto the UK who in turn passed in on to the French so my claims were processed in a serial manner rather than a parallel fashion.
Ireland
First to get back to me was the Department of Social Welfare in Sligo in mid-June with notification that my claim for a contributory pension was successful and informing me of the amount and payment date - this duly started in November and continues to be paid on a weekly basis in advance
UK
The Department for Work & Pensions in the UK received my claim for a UK State pension in July and as nothing had been heard from them since May, I made a couple of phone calls in October to the Overseas Pension Dept in Newcastle. Following these, my pension payments started in early November. I received a letter in mid-November, dated 31st October, with notification of my pension amounts. Lo and behold, my pension was back-dated to November 2017, and I even got the Christmas 2017 £ 10 bonus! The UK pension is paid every 4 weeks in arrears straight to my Irish bank account
France
The French pension has two elements - a standard State pension similar to the Contributory Irish pension and a Complementary Pension based on your earnings. I had a few letters from the French Social Security in August and September requesting further information for the State pension. Replying to these involved a few telephone calls to France and a visit to our local council office to get a form signed by an official to attest that I as indeed alive and well. As with all French administrative processes, it was a bit laborious filling in the different forms but the letter notifying me of the success of my claim arrived in mid-November and had full details of the computation. The actual payments of the State pension started in early November and were back-dated to 1st June, which was my French pension start date. This pension is paid monthly in arrears to my Irish bank account.
The claim for the Complementary pension has been passed onto the appropriate bodies and I await confirmation and payments - they seem to have a backlog of 4 months, so I don't expect to receive anything till early next year but at least it will be back-dated to 1st June as well. These are paid monthly in advance
Conclusion
My experience is that it pays to make sure your social insurance records are up to date and correct. This can be done well in advance rather than wait till actually making a claim.
The advice to claim up to 6 months in advance is well-founded - my claims were relatively straight-forward.
Now the only worry, all of these payments are funded on as PAYG system, so where will that bring us to in the years to come?