Granny's Credit

I too claimed Granny Credits thanks to advice from DD. I retired at the age of 58 and was foolishly thinking I had plenty of years banked for a decent state pension ahead (taking into account some contracted out years) . However, upon investigating the new SP realised I had a significant shortfall caused by my early retirement. I applied initially for four years backdated childcare credits which I was awarded. Since then I have been credited with three more years. This has made such a difference to my pension which I began receiving three months ago. I would advise anyone caring for GC to explore the benefits of these NI credits.

I posted about “Granny Credits” previously and have received mine. No, it won’t affect your DD/DILs pension at all

It's not just for child care. If you care for a disabled person ( unpaid, child or adult) and get carer's allowance you also get NIC credits.

I claimed the Child care credits for 6 years which has added £25+ to my weekly State Pension. It is well worth doing if you are looking after GC. I was even given the credits for last year when we couldn't look after the GC. We did home school four of them via FaceTime and WhatsApp for between 3 and 5 hours a day so I think we earned them!

Worth noting - thank you.

One thing to look out for with the “Granny Credits”. For parents who earn over a certain amount, there are tax implications if they claim Child Benefit, and they can choose not to claim it. This applied to my DD and her husband. I found out when I put the first claim in that this meant I wasn’t entitled to anything for the preceding year, as even though the wording was that you could be given the credit of a person who was entitled to Child Benefit, it turned out that if they weren’t claiming, they had to register as entitled. I appealed, as all parents of young children are entitled to Child Benefit, and it went to the Ombudsman. I lost - the reason being they wouldn’t know DD was eligible to CB unless she was claiming it. They may have changed the wording since.

At the time a very helpful women on the helpline told me that all DD2 had to do was ring up and state that she wanted to register as entitled to Child Benefit, but not wanting to claim it. It was that easy and I could have the credits from then on. I understand that things have changed since then though and that there’s now a very long form to fill in to register.

I too have been wittering on for years to all who will listen. The special credits do not take anything from the (usually) mother. If the parent of the child(ren) who is claiming child benefit and works in a job that pays at least the starting point for National Insurance, which I believe is £184 a week, then a credit can usually be made for that year to the carer. I claimed for 4 years until my state pension kicked in. I stumbled across this credit by accident. Had I not, I would have had 4 empty years on my record.
Also, anyone retiring from 2016 who receives or will receives a private pension, having “contracted out” years ago, will find their state pension reduced. When the pension scheme changed in 2016 lots of women, myself included, have found they are short of the full amount. These credits can boost your state pension.

As with the changes to pension age that hit women born in the fifties, these special credits aren't widely publicised. Also, paying gaps from way back may not increase your qualifying years. Its always best to phone DWP and ask them. Don t leave it too late!

Yep I’ve claimed them for the last 4 years. Claim in October each year. It has no effect on your DD or SiL I needed 3 yrs top up to get my pension to the highest level which would have cost me ~£65 pm. This has saved me that. I think of it as my ‘wages’ for caring for the GC.

Maggiemaybe Thank you for this information and well done for trying to highlight this through GN. I was quite happy at the time to pay extra years NI contributions to boost my pension and more so because I was WASP but when I realised there were other ways to achieve this and I fitted into this category well suffice to say it has paid off for me. I truly hope others can follow.

No, your claiming the credits won’t affect anyone else’s entitlement. I’ve been banging on about the Specified Adult Childcare Credits on the GN forums for the past five years, as so many haven’t heard of them. I emailed GNHQ once to ask them to add them to an article they’d published about boosting pensions, and they did, but I can’t see it now.

It’s such a shame that so many are missing out and buying in years when they don’t need to. Heartening to hear that you had payments refunded when you claimed though, Berylsgranny.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-credits-for-adults-who-care-for-a-child-under-12-fact-sheet/specified-adult-childcare-credits-fact-sheet

Well I thought I would share this information as I'm aware I'm probably not the only person just to find this out. Think there are lots of people out there who could benefit from it. It's there to be given in the right circumstances.

I am glad to see the childcare we grans give being acknowledged. I cared for two GCs for 11 years. I didn't know about this credit and was working 2 days and 3 days looking after my GCs.

Oh, this doesn't apply to me but does to so many GNs. I wish we had a share button!!

It certainly is

I am sure it will help someone berylsgranny. Good news is nice isn’t it.

Silverlining48 - I actually picked it up from GN at the beginning of this year. I had actually paid an additional 3 years worth of NI contributions of my own to boost my state pension in 2019. I then found out through GN that I could have applied for 'granny's credit' since I look after 2 x GC. It took a while only because these things do unfortunately but I have been awarded the granny's credit AND I was refunded 2 out of 3 years which I had already paid. It was worth the wait and the toing and froing with HMRC. Hope this helps.

This shouldn’t affect anyone else. Well done for getting the recognition carers deserve,
Perhaps tell us how you went about it. Probably too late fir me but others may benefit.

As far as I'm aware it wont make any difference to your DS/DD and I'm not sure who you could contact to look into this for you.

Hopefully there'll be someone who can be more helpful.