Pensions advice re overpayment & deceased benefciary

[RiftGibbon]

Can anyone please advise on this at all?

I had a relative who had a private pension with a company, that had been in place since they started with them, back in the 1960s. That relative died 5 years ago, and pension rights/payments defaulted to their spouse at a set rate, for the duration of spouse's lifetime.
All well and good so far.

Spouse died last September and I wrote to the pension company immediately to advise, enclosing death certificate. A payment was made into the person's bank account a day or so after they had died.
I advised the pension company of this and they asked if I had written to inform of the death. We established there was a slight lag in paperwork.
About a fortnight after they received the letter informing them of the death, they wrote back, returning my documents and stating that if there was any overpayment, they would get in touch.

I have had a letter today from them asking for the best part of £500 which they overpaid back in September.

It seems pretty unreasonable that they have left it this long. The estate has been disposed of, and the account into which the money was paid closed as it's now been over 6 months since the death.

I'm going to write to them and query why it has taken 7 months for them to determine that they had overpaid, but I was wondering what else I might say?

Assuming you were the executor, if you placed a notice under section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925 in the London Gazette and a local paper you can tell the pension company that you did so and it is therefore now too late for them to make a claim. In this situation they can pursue the beneficiaries but they have no claim against the executor.

If you did not place a Section 27 notice I'm afraid you may be personally liable for this money.

Sometimes these things get picked up in year end work. From my experience the best way forward is ignoring them. Most trustees/providers will eventually write off an overpayment of this magnitude if there is no engagement. They already know they were informed promptly so there was no intention to defraud

I was an executor, but also a beneficiary. Unfortunately I had no idea that I should have placed a notice, but it sounds as though they'd still have a claim.
I can certainly ignore the letter for the time being - post is irregular. They were informed extremely promptly and I deliberately left the account where it was for three months in case of any claims (as there were care home fees, various other banks and insurance things to sort) coming in.

I had a similar problem with NHS Pension scheme - they wrote a very threatening letter 7 months after my dh died saying I had 14 days to pay up - absolutely no previous correspondence. They stated they had written to me several times - no they didnt.

They were told 3 days after he died via the tell us once service and again when I claimed widows pension. I complained but they just said the money had to be paid back.

I assumed the overpayment was taken from my widows pension as I had NO paperwork re payment of the arrears of the pension which was paid 3 months late as a lump sum!