Expat pensions will soon be obliged to prove they are not dead in order to claim their pensions.
The new arrangement came in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement at the beginning of the month.
The motivation appears to be a desire to avoid relatives collecting a dead person’s pension, having failed to inform British authorities of the death.
The Treasury said it would save taxpayers £45 million over two years from 2014, as payments will no longer be made to the dead.
But campaigners against ‘frozen’ pensions have objected, saying the time frame for returning the form to the Department of Work and Pensions was too short and the cost involved was difficult to meet for pensioners on severely diminished incomes.
In a number of countries popular in retirement for expats, pensions are frozen at the date of emigration and do not increase with inflation.
Expat pensioners now must send the DPW a signed statement, countersigned locally, to order to get a ‘life certificate’. This must be done every two years.
Previously, such forms were sent to pensioners abroad on a random basis.
Information sharing arrangements are in place between the UK and Australia, Spain, the US and New Zealand, according to a DWP spokesman. Pensioners in the other countries will be sent forms to fill out and return when they reach the age of 75.
Other measures which were announced in the Autumn Statement and impact on pensioners abroad include:
Capital gains tax will apply from April 2015 on residential property in the UK sold by expats.
The end from 2015 of the winter fuel allowance for those in warmer climates.
And the Government disclosed in May that non-working spouses of Britons overseas will lose a pension benefit known as the married person’s allowance.
