Martin Lewis issues warning on TV licenses: ‘Do you need to pay it?’ – retirees affected | Personal Finance | Finance
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Martin Lewis issued a warning on TV licence rules tonight, as their price will rise come April 2021. TV licences will cost £159 from April but Martin urged consumers to ask themselves “do you need to pay it?”.
As he explained: “Well look, if you’re over 75 you do need to pay it unless you get pension credit.
“My big problem with that is that there are 1.2 million eligible state pensioners who don’t claim pension credit when they could.
“If you’re a low income pensioner, or know someone who is, call the pension credit hotline and see if you’re eligible for that month.
“It might mean if you’re over 75, you’ll get a free TV license.”
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Currently, those who are over 74 and receive, or live with someone who receives, pension credit can apply for a free over 75 TV license.
Free TV licenses are not awarded automatically, they will need to be claimed for.
Tclicensing.co.uk recommend people do this when they’re 74 years old as it will speed up the process ahead of time.
Claims for pension credit can be made up to four months before reaching state pension age.
Retirees can make their claim for pension credit at any point after they reach state pension age but they can only be backdated by up to three months.
This could mean some claimants could get up to three months worth of pension credit payments in their first payment.
If a person is backdating their claim, they’ll need details of their income, savings and investments for the date they want to start their claim from.
Initial claims will also require the claimants National Insurance number and banking details.
Claims can be made online, over the phone or through the post and claimants must report the following change of circumstances as payments come through:
- Starting or stopping work
- Going into hospital or a care home
- People moving in or out of their house
- Moving house
- Changing names
- Switching their bank account
- Changes to their Post Office card account
- Leaving England, Scotland and Wales for over four weeks
- They start or stop looking after a child or young person under the age of 20
If these kinds of changes aren’t reported, the payments could stop.
Do you have a money dilemma which you’d like a financial expert’s opinion on? If you would like to ask one of our finance experts a question, please email your query to personal.finance@reachplc.com.
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