Well, you might be entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment if you submit the form on time and otherwise meet the qualifications. The details are here: Winter Fuel Payment: If you live abroad - GOV.UK . Some people here have succeeded in claiming this already.
I met the concrete requirements but apparently failed to meet the “genuine and sufficient link to the UK” requirement which is vaguely defined. Anyway, I’m not going to fight it and even at the time of making the application I thought I was being a bit opportunistic.
Good luck to those who are already getting it paid here.
Here is the rejection letter:
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Just finishing off my application to send to them in the next few days. Think I probably qualify for it.
What links do you have to the UK? Are you British?
Me ?
Yes, also still British. I have 2 relative there. I stated that I had not returned to the UK in the last 3 years and left over 3 decades ago.
Do you pay UK NIC or collect UK pensions?
I’m surprised then that with UK passport and pension that it is still not enough!
I don’t recall my husband ever having to prove that he had sufficient links to the UK and he gets it.
All he has is a UK state pension and some family members living in the UK but he was never asked about them.
I’m really surprised that you don’t qualify for it. It was £500 this year which was a nice Christmas present.
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Got my acceptance letter today. 
Had a laugh though at the standard letter. It ended up saying “Most payments will be made in November or December. If you have not received your payment by 26th January 2024 …” Letter dated 5th April 2024. 
Qualifying criteria accepted on: being born before 24th September 1957 and not living with anyone else who qualifies.
Also curious why letters from the UK government come via the Netherlands. That letter was posted from there, not from the UK.
They’ve been coming from there for quite a while now.
I can’t remember if it started at the same time as they changed from the brown envelopes.
Just seems weird. Have to send the letter to Netherlands and then send them out from there to wherever. Must cost more than just posting direct from the UK surely.
Also just for info, I didn’t bother with getting a copy of my permit notarised; I just sent an attestation de domicile from my commune to prove residency and that was accepted.
I suspect that might be the reason for the refusal. You don’t have enough links to the UK because you’ve not been back even for visits. Although we left in 1998 we’ve been back regularly during that time; first to see parents-in-law and then to check on our UK house when we inherited after they passed on. Also visit cousins when we’re over if we can manage to arrange a meet up.
And now you probably won’t be getting it any more. Oh well, at least I got one payment out of them. Just announced by the chancellor:
- Chancellor Rachel Reeves says winter fuel payments will now be restricted to those on pension credits or other means-tested benefits
Good way to piss off all the older voters.
I guess she thinks they’ll all be gone before the next election so it won’t matter.
It sounds like a nightmare to administer, I wonder how the Pension Service will get the information about people with means-tested benefits from other authorities like Council Tax support applied by the councils.
Seems some of us might still get something.
Plus increase in the State pension on the horizon for next year.
I very much doubt that anyone who has a Swiss pension is claiming any of those benefits which is what is required to make them eligible for the payments.
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I feel sorry for many of the pensioners in the UK who have lost the winter fuel allowance. I have 3 older siblings who are all losing it, one is 71 and single, another is 74 with a wife who is getting over a serious bout of ill health and the third is 79 and a widower with Type 2 and other health issues (we suspect he may have the onset of dementia). All of them genuinely used it towards their fuel bills. My sister is the youngest and she’s preparing herself for the rumoured loss of the 25% single person council tax discount and the loss of her bus pass as she goes all over with it. All worked from the ages of 16 to retirement with no breaks, the eldest served his country in the Royal Navy and saw active service.
I am not sure if the loss of the winter fuel allowance is a decision or just a proposal.
