ESA & State pension deferral
Posted: March 23rd, 2020, 4:39 pm
I am currently receiving ESA (contribution based).
I have been invited to apply for my State Pension which will start in July. I am confused about my choice of being able to defer my pension or not. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to as esa is a working age benefit.
However gov.uk website indicates that if you want to defer and you are on benefits then you must Inform them. They then list the benefits which apply in this situation and ESA (income based) is one of them.
This seems contradictory. I rang the pension service and they told me that I can't defer because I'm receiving a working age benefit but when I mentioned that their website seems to contradict this by mentioning the income based version as a qualifier for possible deferment, they couldn't give me a reason why this is the case.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
Thanks in advance.
I have been invited to apply for my State Pension which will start in July. I am confused about my choice of being able to defer my pension or not. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to as esa is a working age benefit.
However gov.uk website indicates that if you want to defer and you are on benefits then you must Inform them. They then list the benefits which apply in this situation and ESA (income based) is one of them.
This seems contradictory. I rang the pension service and they told me that I can't defer because I'm receiving a working age benefit but when I mentioned that their website seems to contradict this by mentioning the income based version as a qualifier for possible deferment, they couldn't give me a reason why this is the case.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
Thanks in advance.