UK State Pension, some advice

A New years resolution to review my pensions and ensure I am in the best possible place for everything. Pensions are one area that are a bit of a a "dark art" for me.

I worked in the UK for most of the 90s. HMRC have told me that I have 11 qualifying years of NICs. I have worked back in Ireland since 2000 and am 53 this year.

I'm not clear what impact this has on my Irish state pension (if any) and what I can or should be doing to ensure I get the maximum amount I am entitled to get

You should be able to make voluntary contributions to UK pension; a lump sum to bring you up to date and then annually after that.

Even with the concerns re Brexit, it will be worth doing.

Thirsty said:

You should be able to make voluntary contributions to UK pension; a lump sum to bring you up to date and then annually after that.

Click to expand...

You need to send HMRC a form NI38 (google it) and they will tell you what you can pay.

It is extremely cheap to make voluntary back contributions and ongoing one (as in £3 a week) but there are cut-offs for doing so so start straight away!

I have just did this myself. Like the ops say fill out the NI38 for this, (there is abit to fill out on it), you will be able to claim class-2 contributions, for the amount of time you have been working in Ireland, which comes to around £158 to £160 per year. So this is a no brainer!!
Now this can and will take 20 weeks, so does take a long time. Also i phoned them on the number that came with the letter and asked how many more years, can i claim after this to get a full UK pension. I`m 55 and was told another 6 years would do that for a full UK pension.
Also if you have old pensions from different companies in the UK they can be hard to trace, i have found 4 so far from the UK gov tracing web page, and doing some of my own investigations. Also you can google "request for contracted-out information" and again write off to HMRC to tell you what pensions you may have lost if you contracted out in the early days.
Good luck and hope that helps a little.

Can one make UK NI voluntary contributions if already getting the Irish state contributory pension?
I lived in Northern Ireland and England until 1978 but have lived and worked in ireland since then. I am 67 and still working but also getting the state pension - I did inform Irish pension department of my UK record but have not heard anything back from them. I may have left it too late submit NI38.