AIBU to think claiming two state pensions seems unethical?

It’s amazing how much benefit bashing we see on other threads here, saying those people are work shy scroungers, the country can’t afford it…. yet in this scenario it’s mainly ‘they’re doing what’s legal and what they’re entitled to’…

"Seems smug" get over yourself.

The pensions office has checks. If there are no issues, people who are entitled to one get a pension.

If it’s permitted by the rules, how is it unethical? Good for them. If you object to the rules, you should write to your MP.

Gove?????? Aargh.

The UK Gove website says you can make Class 3 contributions from overseas if you meet certain criteria.

https://www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions/if-you-live-or-work-abroad.

Exactly, to pay class 3 you have to be paying contributions in your current country of residence .
I was only 3 years short of full contributions when we moved abroad so have paid mine.
However the rules changed in April.and I believe you can no longer pay class 3.

Not wrong to claim it. Definitely wrong to smugly flaunt it.

On benefits threads everyone tells people to claim absolutely everything they are allowed to regardless of “need”. Especially if the person has children. They get told to claim and save it for their children in the future. Maybe all these pensioners are taking that advice…..

Clearly not, or op's parents and many others wouldn't still be claiming.

It needs to be retroactively nipped. It would be completely fair to stop the pensions of those who only worked in the UK for a few years.

The bud was nipped April 2026.

Totally unethical and scummy behaviour, legal or not.

Wonder how much could be saved if this was nipped in the bud, I'm betting quite a substantial amount. Someone must have FOI.

They’ve paid enough to qualify
what’s the difference between then and someone who’s lived in the uk all there life and never worked a day getting there pension ( obviously excluding disabled people who can’t)
there households where 3 generations have never worked

But that is totally incorrect.
You need 10 years to qualify to receive some amount of pension.
If you only have paid in 10 years you get less than a third of a full pension.
You need 35 years NI contributions to receive a full UK pension. Anything in between 10 and 35 years is pro-rata.

They had to pay the annual voluntary rate to get full contributions, currently it’s £956.80, this does add up over many years, plus they won’t have been costing us nhs money and crucially won’t cost us for elder care, many people do this because they don’t know if they will return. I plan on paying class 3 myself for 3 years to complete my contributions.

I think this was a quirk/ blip in the system that was available for a few years post Brexit. Like most things it only benefitted those able to spare a fairly large lump sum straight away to pay into national insurance.
The way it used to work preBrexit was that changing country within the EU didn't matter too much as your contributions from both countries combined to one full pension.

You can rejoice in the fact that anyone who paid into the uk national insurance system for ten or eleven years before moving to the EU and didn't have thousands of pounds to pay into the UK national insurance simultaneously with their new country is worse off -

if you paid in for less than twelve years, even if you paid for a decade and you yet £0, ever, so you have a hole in your pension despite having been paying at that time.

Yet those same people often criticise companies for doing exactly the same thing: paying only what they are legally required to pay, or arranging their affairs to take advantage of loopholes

How you know that? Do you have a spreadsheet?
Why would anyone, individual or company, pay more than they are obliged to?

The onus is on governments to close the loopholes, or tighten criteria, which in this case, they have.

It sounds like they have done everything legally though so they haven’t scammed anyone.

This is a weird MN trend. Children, even in their 50s, are bitter about their parents having any hint of financial security beyond working age. It's so bizarre!

This is what I find frustrating. People are saying that because this is legal, it's perfectly acceptable. Yet those same people often criticise companies for doing exactly the same thing: paying only what they are legally required to pay, or arranging their affairs to take advantage of loopholes.

Why is one considered acceptable and the other considered wrong? In both cases, the individuals or organisations involved are acting within the law and exploiting a loophole or advantage that exists. If we're going to judge one as unethical, surely we should apply the same standard to the other. If it's acceptable for this couple because it's legal, then why isn't it acceptable for companies for the same reason? And no, I don't work for those companies!

Same before we left the UK we paid and have been doing the contributions - although no additional state pension where I am (means tested).

I am talking about state paid superannuation, which is what it is called here (I hate the word pension, it's so old fashioned). Super here describes both what you call pension as well as voluntary non government savings.

The OP is talking about state paid pension also.

How do you know they are paying tax? You pay tax in the country you live…

Yep. My nan gets English and Irish state pensions. Moved to England from Ireland in her mid-20s.

Are you talking about Super or pension?

I’m in Aus and they are 2 completely different things. Super is money put aside (compulsory and then voluntary over the compulsory amount) in non-government funds. Pension is completely separate as it’s money from government funds that the government gives you in retirement, the amount of which is based on your assets, which includes Super.

What you describe sounds like pension, not Super? Of course you can pull your Super from another country if you have a Super fund there as well as from your Super fund in your home country as it is ‘private’ money (it’s really like a personal savings account but instead of it just sitting earning interest, it’s pooled with other people’s personal saving and clever people ‘invest’ it to make better money growth for you all), it’s not the government’s money, so why shouldn’t you be able to do that?