If you haven’t paid into the LGPS for long you might be able to apply for a refund of the pension contributions you’ve paid into the scheme.
A refund is where we pay you back the money you have paid into the LGPS.
Eligibility for a refund
We can normally only pay you a refund if your membership in the LGPS lasted for less than 2 years, and:
- You don’t have any other LGPS pension rights, such as a different LGPS pension that is deferred or you’re paying into the scheme via a different job
- You haven’t transferred pension in from another scheme
- You aren’t starting another job eligible for the LGPS within a month of leaving
What you will get back
The payment you will get as your refund will be the pension contributions you paid while you were a scheme member, less any tax relief you have had. This is because you pay less in tax when you’re in the scheme. When you’re contributing to the LGPS, you normally don’t pay tax on your pay until after your pension contributions have been deducted.
Also if any of your refund includes contributions you paid before 1 April 2016, there will be a National Insurance deduction too. This is because, when you paid into the LGPS before April 2016, you generally paid less in National Insurance. The deduction from your refund will give you additional State Pension credit just for that period.
You won’t get your employer’s contributions as part of your refund, you’ll only get a refund of the contributions which you paid to the scheme.
How to apply for your refund
If you want to apply for a refund of your pension contributions, and you think you are eligible having read the eligibility criteria, all you need to do is send us a letter or an email.
We’ll then write to you with the details of what the refund will be and ask you to declare that you haven’t started another job eligible for the LGPS. Please note that accepting a refund means you give up any other LGPS rights you may have had at that point.
We can’t pay your refund until after a month has passed since you left the scheme. This is because we can’t pay your refund if you return to the LGPS either in Derbyshire or anywhere else in England and Wales, within a month of leaving.
If we pay it to you more than 12 months after you leave, we will add interest to cover the period from the date you left.
Please note: You can’t pay your refund back to us at a later date to reinstate your scheme membership.