Your deferred benefits and refund

As you prepare for your retirement benefits to be brought into payment, there are a number of steps which need to happen before your pension benefits can be paid. Please note that it can take several weeks for the whole process of putting your benefits into payment to be completed.

• We will supply the details of your standard benefits and the additional options which are available to you. Our ability to provide your options is dependent upon numerous factors including payroll deadlines and volume of work.  
• We will write to you enclosing all details of the options available to you. You will need to fill in an option form to confirm how you want to take your benefit package. You will need to make a decision about how much lump sum you want to take, before we can pay any pension benefits to you. You may need to provide some information about additional pensions or overseas pension transfers.
• We will also require a photocopy of your Birth Certificate, Driving Licence or Passport to be able to process your retirement benefits. Please post the photocopy of your certificate to our office. Our full postal address: Tyne and Wear Pension Fund, Westoe Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE33 2RL.

  There is now a facility to upload completed forms and documents via your mypension account.  Further guidance regarding this is at the link to our website below:

  https://www.twpf.info/article/10472/Viewing-downloading-and-uploading-documents

Our ability to get you onto the next pension payroll period is influenced by the pension pay dates and our usual monthly cycle of processing.

You are able to run your own estimate of benefits through your mypension account which will show you what you may receive if you were to retire.  Guidance is available from the below web addresses:

https://www.twpf.info/article/10412/Estimating-the-amount-you-get

If, after running your calculation, you are interested in taking your retirement benefits go to the 'My Membership Details' tab and choose the 'Request Payment of My Pension' option to submit your request. Please note that we can only accept requests that are within 3 months of the retirement date, which must be from age 55 or over. We will write to you with your retirement options and further information closer to your requested retirement date

Once your benefits are brought into payment they will be backdated to your first day on pension, which is usually the day after your appropriate birthday, your Normal Retirement Age, or the day after the date you wrote on your CARE 65 form (if you have completed one). This may mean that your first pension payment includes arrears and may be more than a single month's pension amount. Most pensioners find that they pay tax based on a temporary tax code during their first few months on pension until HMRC inform us of your personalised tax code. Once we have a personal tax code for you, we will adjust the tax deductions and repay any overpayment of tax within the tax year.

Pension payments are made on the first working day after 15th of each month, for the whole of that calendar month. Please consult our list of  pension pay dates to find out when you will receive your pension payments.

Your payslips will be available each month online through your mypension account. These payslips can be printed if you need to provide proof of your pension to any third party organisation. Your P60 (Statement of Earnings) form and annual update information will also be available through your mypension account each April.

You can also use your mypension account to update some of your personal details, for example, if you move home or change your name. To register please go to Help using your mypension account.

Please note if you have filled in our form CARE65 Application for Early Payment of Benefits, this does not shorten or replace any of the procedures listed above.