RetireJapan

Tkydon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 4:52 pm Current £1952pa
£110 / £1952 = 5.6% uplift
£185 / £1952 = 9.5% uplift

So you were in the ballpark with your estimate of 10% uplift...

Your calculation is not quite right, because I forgot to mention I took some of the original pension as a lump sum. So there is no way I can see this reaching actually 10% of the original. But I am going to take the lump sum anyway, because I know I won't get any more shocks.

But I also see their insistence that I choose, lump sum or pension, *before* I know how much the pension is, and I cannot see how this can be regarded as honest. If they are just going to purchase a market-rate pension with the lump sum amount, I could get the same pension by purchasing it myself with the lump sum (surely?), so there should be no need for skullduggery. Am I hopelessly naive in imagining they would even want to be seen as honest?

.

Good luck with it all. Any decisions made?

If dealings with the institution have been and continue to be difficult, a lump sum might be preferable for non financial reasons! (Though, in your case, this is a 'top up' of a pension already being paid, so you already have an ongoing relationship with the institution... no option to sever ties altogether.)

Tkydon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 5:04 pm Japan does not have a Social Security Agreement with the UK.

A minor point, perhaps, but there is a social security agreement between Japan and the UK (mentioned in the wiki):
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/200 ... edule/made

However, it is not a totalisation agreement. It eliminates compulsory contributions to the two systems.

At least two places on gov.uk have room for improvement in their treatment of Japan when summarising social security agreements.

This page 'gets it right': https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... agreements

Tkydon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 5:04 pm https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ement-with

This page neglects to mention Japan in the bottom bit where it mentions countries with social security agreements which do NOT allow for annual uprating. (Though the purpose of the page is to list countries which have annual increases, and Japan is not one of them; the page is not wrong per se, but it perhaps *implies* that Canada and NZ are the social security agreement countries without uprating.)