14
NEWS
EWN
9 - 15 August 2012 Costa Blanca North
www.euroweeklynews.com
New winter fuel payment hope for expat pensioners living in Spain BRITISH state pensioners in Spain are a step nearer to receiving the £200 (€250) winter fuel allowance. At present only pensioners who received the allowance prior to moving abroad - including to Spain and elsewhere - get the once-a-year winter payment. This has left tens of thousands of expatriates overseas fighting for the allowance against counter British Government claims that by living in a warmer climate they should not be entitled to it. The British Expatriates Association (Spain) has been leading the fight on behalf of British pensioners in Spain, with many increasingly feeling embittered as the pound weakened against the euro. David Burrage of Alfaz del Pi, Alicante, association co-founder and legal advisor, is delighted by the latest step forward in the years-long battle for all pensioners to be entitled to the allowance. “This is exactly what has been needed. We advise people to
SPANISH CLIMATE: Winters may be warmer than in UK but can still be cold and damp. continue to put in claims for the payment, and go to formal appeal if necessary in respect of earlier years of lost payment. “This has been a long, uphill battle for us since the inception of this benefit, although we never doubted we would eventually succeed,” said Burrage, himself a pensioner who has lived in Spain for 22 years.
The final step forward in the winter fuel payment battle follows the capitulation during tribunal appeal proceedings when Burrage had intervened on behalf of the appellant, a British pensioner in Switzerland - who has never received the allowance - fighting for the right to a winter fuel payment. While providing extra summer
cheer, payment of the fuel allowance is far from a done deal. The UK’s Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has already vowed to create a rule on eligibility by temperature. “We will fight these ridiculous EU rules. It is ludicrous we could have to pay more pensioners living in hot countries,” he told one British newspaper.
Burrage added that the Secretary of State should educate himself as to how difficult and expensive it is for residents of Spain to keep warm in winter once the sun has set. But the Department of Work and Pensions conceded that it was now possible that ‘people living in the European Economic Area and Switzerland may be entitled to claim the Winter Fuel Payment’. Thousands of British expatriates living in Spain have claimed that while winters may be warmer here than in Britain, the allowance should be paid as an entitlement as fully paid-up pensioners, and also that it is not possible - as many in the UK wrongly claim - to live here without any heating. “I spend more than €800 every winter on logs,” said Roy Gregory, a pensioner living in Alhaurin El Grande near Malaga. There is also a question mark over whether payments will be backdated. Burrage is currently addressing this issue.