[PaulandHelen]

Hi all, somebody must of come across this before. We are leaving for Wellington in feb 06 by which time we should have PR, but our intentions are not to burn our bridges hence we intend to give it 18 months if everything works out how we hope we will sell everything here and make NZ our home. If not we will come back. Anyway i am just starting to look into banks, tax and that and i've come across a dilemma, do i carry on paying my stamp in case i come back to the uk or do i risk it and not bother. Does anyone know if nz has an agreement with the uk or if contributions ther e count here.
Thank you for any info
P+H.

[foolsgold99]

It all depends on your age, get a pension forecast from the DWP just now, it will show how many years NI you've paid, and how many more you need to get a full pension. If you've been working most of your life, it's likely you'll be able to skip 5 years and still get your full pension, this document will also show how much it'll cost you to "buy" the missing years. From what I recall it's very cheap to do if you need to.

[GeorgeM]

But if you do intend to stay down here into retirement any extra years are wasted.

My understanding (please someone correct me if I'm wrong as this will be really bum advice) is that all NZ residents who have lived here for 10(?) years qualify for a full NZ pension (small as that may seem to people converting this to USD or GBP). BUT for the brits the NZ government claws this back to the exact amount paid to you from your UK state pension. The more HMG gives you the more Dr Cullen and his mates claw back. So from that perspective, if you know you're going to be here rather then there, it's not worth buying extra years.

There was a case in Canterbury (Rangiora, I think) a while ago where a long term british ex pat well into retirement hadn't realised this and had been drawing a full NZ pension plus the partial UK one. After many many years the NZ govt department responsible found out and came after him for what he owed, which was many tens of thousands of dollars. I can't remember how this was resolved, but at the time the guy was claiming that to settle the bill he would have to sell his house.

[PaulandHelen]

Hi guys, thank you for the replys.
I don't want to end up selling my house!! I think talking to the DWP is a good idea, thanks again
P+H