ouDAN

My CF83 application was accepted a while ago and I have successfully made payments for gap years and years since my application was accepted. My pension forecast has been lower than I expected, given my back-payments, but I recently learnt that a period of being contracted out is the cause and also that my belief that I could pay for a maximum of 35 years was erroneous. So, getting to the point, I had confirmation that payments for an additional 2 years (plus upcoming years) will improve my pension to the maximum. If I've understood NIM72270 correctly then the rate I should use is the rate for 2022/2023, i.e. £3.15 / week. Can that be confirmed by someone on this forum? If I 'play safe' and use the 2023/2024 rate (£3.45/week), will any over-payment be applied to upcoming years? Thanks.

Payments were allocated to my pension record a few days ago, so within 3 months or so. Not within 6 weeks, but a lot quicker than the 39 weeks mentioned above.

I also paid voluntary contributions earlier this year, in my case in February. There were 2 items in the progress tracker regarding those payments. Both have disappeared. There are still gaps in my record. I'm also curious how long to wait. I've seen comments elsewhere that it can take 30 weeks before the contributions are applied. Is that still the case?