Who was right?

John’s Story: Why Your Age Pension Centrelink Application May Be Rejected and How to Fix It.

John was referred by his accountant after being rejected for the age pension. John was convinced he should be entitled to something and he could not understand why he got rejected.

John had applied for the pension around five months before. He used the Centrelink online application system. His situation was simple, and he found the questions reasonably straight forward. He uploaded all the documents that were requested and hit submit.

He was not sure how the means test worked but felt confident that he would be entitled to something.

Sometime later he received a phone call from a Centrelink Service Officer asking for some additional information about his business that he had before he retired which he was able to answer.

Not long after he received a letter from Centrelink saying his claim was rejected. There did not appear to be an explanation and he was convinced it was wrong. He went to the ombudsman who sent him to a solicitor. The solicitor said he was over the assets test. The solicitor was wrong.

John contacted me 13 weeks and 3 days after the date of the rejection letter. The significance of the timing is that John had 13 weeks to appeal a decision. After that he would need to re-apply and backdating would not be available.

After reading the rejection letter I was able to tell John the basis of him being rejected was purely on the grounds that he had failed to provide appropriate ID. Centrelink say they asked for this when they rang John, John says they did not.

Despite this, I was able to have John’s pension benefit backdated to the date of his original application resulting in him receiving a significant lump sum and he continues to receive his entitlement each fortnight.

Please be aware that this is just a snapshot of the information available on this client’s story and you should not make any decisions based on this article without seeking further advice about your individual circumstances.

Key outtakes from John’s story include:

• No matter how simple your situation is, things can and sometimes do go wrong when applying for the age pension!

• No matter how qualified someone is in their field of expertise, if they don’t specialise in age pension advice, they should not be giving it!