As I decided to leave Britain after having made only 29 years National Insurance (NI) contributions I accepted the future consequence of not being able to look forward to a full UK State Pension.

This was because to claim a full pension you needed to make the full 44 years NI contributions to be entitled to a full pension. I decided at the time not to make any more donations to the UK government and settled for a pension of 29/44ths when my time came.

However a few weeks ago I decided to re-visit the situation and wrote to HM Revenue and Customs and asked them to satisfy my curiosity about how much it would cost to make additional pension top-up contributions.

I received a very surprising letter back informing me that the rules have changed and now only 30 years contributions are necessary under new legislation due to come into effect in April 2010.

So now I only have to make one more years contributions to top up to the full 30 years which seems like a windfall to me.

You only qualify for this change if you reach State Pension age on or after April 6th 2010 and I am delighted to say that I do!

If you would like to contact them write to:

Residence Residency
BP 1301
Benton Park View
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE98 1ZZ
UK

(Note if you are still UK resident this address may not apply)

Visit: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk