General Chat

Hmmmm......but are they treated the same?......in the UK that is......going by what has been said ...the UK citizens do not seem to have the same respect as those who live abroad..... But then I only go by how I actually 'feel' which is.......I have never expected to draw finances from any country unless I belong to it and have allegiance to or would give my life to ( sort of ) ........having said this......If The UK want to give it away then they can expect more than those who deserve it , to come get it, and if I decided to live abroad would take advantage of as many freebies as I could :-)

I rest my case.....lol I'm not sure exactly what you mean by not drawing finances from a country unless you belonged to it. Do you mean you have actually got to live in the country to receive finances from it. If so not many pensioners would be able to fulfill their dreams of retiring to the sun and better living conditions especially for health reasons as they depend on their pensions to live. Isn't that a bit like saying ' if you need to draw a pension to live, the same pension that you have contributed to all your working life, then you must do as we tell you and live in the UK.

No Idea Tenerife.....Just saying what I think.......I am one of these people who could never understand why the government wanted to give me family allowance.....after all....were they not my children?.....should I not keep them?.......Couldn't believe it when Oh was given winter allowance......Why?.......I know there are those who cannot afford winter fuel.....but why does 'Everyone' over a certain age need fuel allowance?.....sheesh.....we are a weird country........If I left this country.......Why would I expect it to support me any longer?..........sheesh!.........doesn't it have enough problems supporting all the others who see it as a free lunch. As for dreams of a better life......Yep....we can all dream I suppose.......let's drain the UK and get a better life at their expense......Isn't that what a lot of countries and expats think of us......As I say and say again.......Leave the country cos yer don't want ter live here.......then leave all the perks too.......Of course.....I, like most others.....would want the perks and if they were given would take them..........My case also rests...... :-)





Edit:-.......It is my opinion that if one moves abroad that one should expect to live by the standards according to the country one lives in........If it doesn't have the same perks as the Uk then so be it.....There must be perks of the country better than the UK.....Your choice and so be it......Can't have it both ways......wish we could.

No there are no perks given by the the country you move to for the simple reason that all your contributions were made whilst living and working elsewhere, and so without the pension to which you have contributed to for years in the UK you would have nothing. No, again, I don't think that expats think 'let's drain the UK' I think that is what most but not all the illegal immigrants to the UK are doing. I can only speak for myself and I think I am entitled to what I have contributed to . Nothing more, nothing less . No perks . But where and how I spend that entitlement is up to me not for some government or anybody else to decide. Yes I left the country to live somewhere else and yes I did leave the perks. I did accept the pension I had paid into and on which I am still paying tax to the UK I also pay VAT.

Did you refuse the family allowance that you didn't think you should have? Have you forgone your right to your OH's fuel allowance therefore making your contribution against draining the country? If the answer to these questions is no then the only difference between anyone who shares your views and an expat is where you have chosen to live. As for 'leaving the country because you don't want to live there ...then leave the perks too,' isn't that the same as saying stay trapped living somewhere that you don't want to live or give up what you have spent the last 40 years paying for ...your state pension.

How can you say that if you leave the country then you should leave the perks and also say that if you were to move to another country you would take all the freebies you could get. Isn't that kind of sitting on both sides of the fence or having your cake and eating it!

These comments are by no means meant to come across as argumentative. Just, like you, saying things as I see them and for whatever reason we don't see them in the same way.

Whether you like being in the EU or not, the fact remains that we are all part of it & the same rules & entitlements should exist wherever you live.
Personally we are in a bad situation at the moment,so living in Spain is not the idyll it is percieved to be.
My husband has another 3 years to go before he can claim his pension. He has been unable to find work for the past 4 years. There is no income support here, so I am supporting both of us on my state pension which I contributed to for 42 years. I can´t claim for him as a dependant.
Consequently we are having to draw on our savings, not for extras, but for essentials. In a very few years the savings will have been used up.
Then what?
There are no council paid services for the elderly. If you need care, you pay for it.
Our combined pensions would not be enough to pay for residential care for both of us, so we have to pray that at least one of us remains healthy or that one of us dies & reduces the cost of existence.
Not exactly living the dream & through no fault of ours.
We thought we had made adequate provision for our old age & if things had remained as they were when I retired, we could have lived comfortably, but no longer.

hi kay????
you can take your pension with you to any commenwealth country not just eu you could in the past also claim any pension increase that has now stopped in some countries like spain but not in all. i too think its stupid you can claim winter payments and live in a hot country

As several people have pointed out, myself included, Spain is not a hot country between November & April. The average daytime temperature is around 12c & it often fall to below zero at night. Added to which there is a lot of rain/snowfall.
I get very angry with people who come here to sit on the beach for 2 weeks & go home with the idea that it´s like that all the year round.
You are correct in saying that people who emigrate to Commonwealth countries take their pension with them. They do, but it remains at the rate that is being paid when they leave. There are no annual increases like there are for EU ex pats, so if you moved to Canada or Australia in 2000, your pension will still be paid at the 2000 rate. Any British pensioner living in ANY EU country, gets the annual increase.

I think, wisechild that some people will never see a holiday destination as anything but that.

It is interesting that Susan hasn't returned to tell me if she accepted her family allowance or her OH's fuel payment which she felt she should not have, or to explain to me, as I do not understand, why she thinks that we should not have our pensions if we leave the UK but she would want anything offered if she herself moved abroad.

Personally TS I would much prefer to have a couple of pounds a week extra on my pension all year than have this constant battle to justify recieving what people obviously perceive as a handout. If I qualify for something & it is awarded to me, as far as I´m concerned, it´s an entitlement. Most of the ex pat pensioners I know don´t get the payment because they don´t qualify to recieve it.
There are lots of minuses as well as pluses to living abroad, but you either accept them & fit in or you go back to where you came from. As my husband is Spanish & he´s here, going back to England isn´t really an option although I suppose we could both go & claim everything I would be entitled to there.
No doubt that would cause another outcry.

Susan will be out with her dogs :-D

My husband was English, sadly he died recently, he had lived and worked here for 28 years and therefore was entitled to a Spanish pension. He did not receive a UK fuel payment. If you couldn't take your pension with you when you moved a lot of people would still be in the UK drawing far more than just their pensions

Or on her boat. Susan is a 'nightbird' Wendy, she will probably re-appear tonight.

But I read her posts as saying that although she didn't agree with it, if she moved abroad and it was handed to her on a plate she would, of course, take what was offered. (human nature). I think that is what she meant, she will correct me if I am wrong of course.


I think people forget that, although many of us were against it, when we joined the EU we figuratively became one country; which is why people can move freely between EU countries, and is why things like the fuel allowance are paid to people who move to other EU countries.

What happens if Spanish (eg) people move to the UK? Do they bring their pension with them? And other benefits?

Sorry to hear about your husband.
You have just confirmed the point I was making. If you are not entitled to the payment, you don´t get it.
If I was in England I would be entitled to pension credit & housing benefit at the very least. I am not entitled to recieve them here & they don´t exist under the Spanish pension arrangements.
Perhaps we should consider going to England & claiming the lot, rather than accepting how things are here & using our savings to cover the shortfall in income, which, as I said, was more than adequate when I retired in 2005.
I haven´t spent the savings on having a good time. They have been spent because of successive governments who have been unable to control their financial institutions.

*spits dummy out*

I never said I disagreed with taking a pension anywhere other outside the UK. I said I disagreed with a 'bonus payment' which related to UK weather being paid to ex-pats.

If your country of residence started to pay the same out of public taxes pertaining to your particlar weather conditions I'd certainly not argue.

For me it is the appalling conditions that some UK pensioners suffer because they do not qualify for enhanced benefits or do not know how to claim them.

I would much rather see this not paid to anyone (and yes we get it) and use the money to increase the state pension.

As for senior citizen perks i.e. free eye tests and presciptions do you feel you should receive those too?

I could moan that I am entitled to a free bus pass but it's no use to me because there are no buses! that's just my tough luck by choosing to live where I do.


*puts dummy back in* :-D

Yes Ann if a Spaniard moves to the UK he will continue to receive his Spanish pension paid into whatever bank he wants. I am not 100% sure but I don,t believe he can claim anything from the UK without taking out 'residencia' as I have done here, but here there is nothing to claim anyway. Here if you are unemployed you get the same amount of time in unemployment pay as you have paid into the system which is why, as you know, you see young girls sweeping the streets and tending the gardens etc.

I understand to a point what Susan is saying but she is quite clearly saying that we should not get our state pension, therefore do we just give up all the years we have paid into it or stay in a country that we don't want to live in. I feel that if anybody feels that strongly and I here quote Susan

" But then I only go by how I actually 'feel' which is.......I have never expected to draw finances from any country unless I belong to it and have allegiance to or would give my life to ( sort of ) "

If she or anyone else feels so strongly about this maybe she should be refusing any benefits offered to her and not saying she would take anything offered to her.

At the end of the day I am still a British Citizen and 'belong' to Britain. If there was a war and if I had a husband or sons of fighting age they would still be called back to enlist to fight for the UK.

Wendy x

Ann in Glos.
In answer to your question, yes, if a Spanish pensioner moves to another EU country their pension goes with them as does their entitlement to health care.There are no other perks for Spanish pensioners.
Supercrutch.
Not sure why you think that ex pats don´t feel the cold or have to pay astronomical fuel bills in the winter.
No, I understand that I´m not entitled to free eye tests. Until last month, all pensioners in Spain got free prescriptions whether they were Spanish or not, Now we have to pay a maximum of €10 per prescription.Eye tests & dentistry don´t come under the blanket of the health service, so those have to be paid for privately.

Sorry Sue you must have posted while I was typing and so I had not read your post.

As I said in an earlier post I do not feel I should have anything except the pension I spent over 40 years paying into. I do become annoyed to think that anyone should think that I should fore go all the money I have paid in over the years if I chose to live in another EU country

There is/was a proposal that all UK pensions will be set at one rate...with no pension credits etc etc. As it's been dropped from the direct.gov page, I'm not sure what's going on now.

If this is case that one size will fit all, then surely the winter fuel allowance will be included in that, for new OAP claimants at least? And I still don't understand why it is being paid to those who are not yet of pensionable age.

Just as the Spanish government and others within the EU have had to reduce their benefit payments, so must the UK, hence these suggestions. However much one may want, or not as the case may be, for the winter fuel allowance to be withdrawn from EU resident ex-pats, the costs in indentifying and administration could well outweigh any savings to the Exchequer.

Good evening :-D


just putting another side to the debate Tenerife.

No idea what my OH does with his heating allowance.....keeps his radiator on I should think.....as for me......I don't feel the cold as much as others do so no contest there. I have never had any benefits and wouldn't take them even if I qualified......not to say others shouldn't.

if you recall....I said I wouldn't expect to claim money from the UK if I lived abroad......The operative word being expect.......This was not meant to be offensive to you or anyone.

I think you have pleaded your case quite well actually......I still stand by what I said though :-D

PS

Of course I claimed my family allowance .....Tsk! I wasn't a martyr lol

Just couldn't understand why every mother needed it.