Are you 66 and still waiting for your state pension? DWP pays £7000 to widower after six-month delay

A retired heating engineer who was forced to wait six months to receive his state pension ended up with a debt of almost £7,000 from the Department for Work and Pensions.

This is the third case of late rent payments to people who are 66 years old that we have reported in the last two weeks.

Trevor Chainey (pictured right) told us: “I’m a patient man, but this is getting a bit silly. It’s draining my savings.”

Like our other two readers, the DWP has apologised and blamed an administrative error for the delay in starting her state pension on time.

Mr Chainey applied early last October and, as a widower, also sent his marriage certificate, as requested by the DWP, well before the mid-December deadline.

He will now receive around £290 a week, above the new standard state pension rate of £221, probably because he inherited a large amount from his late wife’s second state pension.

In a case we reported on a week ago, a 66-year-old man had waited three months for his state pension to start and told us his requests for help from DWP staff were ignored.

A shelter worker who used to help drug users before retiring has recently devoted himself to caring for his sick wife.

She was overpaid carer’s allowance for several weeks after she turned 66, although the DWP did not identify this as the cause of the delay.

Two weeks ago, we published an article about an NHS nurse who had to put her retirement plans on hold and continue doing shifts because the DWP did not start paying her state pension.

Following our intervention, she received her state pension and was also reimbursed for a previous supplementary payment.

But again, the DWP did not give this as a reason for delaying the start of his pension after he turned 66.

Other readers have sent us complaints about the wait to start receiving their state pension, and our investigation is ongoing – details on how to contact us are below.

From autumn 2022 and well into 2023, we reported many cases of difficulties because the DWP did not start paying people on time when they reached state pension age.

The state pension normally starts to be paid retrospectively four weeks after you turn 66, provided you claim it.

Although there is no clear pattern to the current delays, it seems that people over 66 with some kind of unusual problem are more likely to get caught in a delay. Expats also tend to have to wait longer.

Meanwhile, widows or widowers inheriting a second state pension or SERPS from their deceased spouses in their own payments on reaching age 66 are far from uncommon.

> Will you inherit any state pension from your late husband or wife?

Mr Chainey, who lost his wife in 2017, was a heating engineer in the oil and gas industry before retiring and lives in Dorset.

He contacted us to discuss his six-month wait for his state pension after reading our story last week, saying: ‘I have not received any state pension entitlement at all.

‘I’ve called several times, but I feel like it’s a waste of time. Phone calls can take an hour before you speak to someone, and then they have no idea.

“I have an income that doesn’t cover all my bills, so I’m replenishing my savings. Have they forgotten about me? There’s no communication. All I get are promises.”

He told us that when he recently met with his financial adviser for an annual review, he was told that he was not the only client waiting for their state pension. And, as he had heard this before, seeing our story was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” that made him contact us.

After we flagged his case to the DWP and he was awarded £6,920 in state pension arrears, Mr Chainey said: ‘I honestly think this “working from home” culture is the root of the problem and more professionalism needs to be applied.

“I have no proof, but the DWP really needs to get its act together.

‘In my case, I have been able to get through the last six months thanks to my savings and my private pensions. I only hope that sharing my story has helped people who have not been as lucky as me in some way.’

The DWP was asked to comment on Mr Chainey’s wait to receive his state pension but was unable to comment due to pre-election rules.

He apologized for the delay, which was due to an administrative error, and stressed that when errors occur, he is committed to correcting them.

Former Pensions Minister and This is Money retirement columnist Steve Webb said: ‘You’d expect that after a lifetime of contributions it would be straightforward to claim your rightful state pension and receive it quickly.

“But even in this digital age, it seems that anything other than a ‘standard’ claim risks waiting months and losing thousands of pounds out of pocket.”

Webb, now a partner at LCP, added: “Whoever ends up in charge of the Department in the coming days urgently needs to put customer service at the top of their agenda, otherwise people will continue to have to battle with DWP on a regular basis.”