Buy Down Selection Process

[cnocmhor]

Hi, there is a chance to buy down in my office and have decided to go for it 39 down to 25( my office does have surplus hrs) the thing is somebody else has put in for it aswell could anybody shed light on the selection process to buy down i.e is it just based on seniority ? , i have looked at the MTSF but cannot find anything definite thanks.

[dvbuk55]

Hi, there is a chance to buy down in my office and have decided to go for it 39 down to 25( my office does have surplus hrs) the thing is somebody else has put in for it aswell could anybody shed light on the selection process to buy down i.e is it just based on seniority ? , i have looked at the MTSF but cannot find anything definite thanks.

How many surplus hours and have you both gone for 25 hrs?

[cnocmhor]

14 hrs surplus and yes we've both gone for the 25hrs theres only one buy down on offer

[dvbuk55]

14 hrs surplus and yes we've both gone for the 25hrs theres only one buy down on offer

Well unless your the senior person it'll go on seniority or at least it did when I took it but that was nearly 9 years.

[islfor]

Buy down is great if your over 56, as it has massive impact on your pension contributions if your less, as your pension is based on your best 3 years from your final 7 years.
Beware & seek advice

[Surreypostie]

How does buy down work? Got to be a decent payout or nobody would take it.

[korky]

How does buy down work? Got to be a decent payout or nobody would take it.

think it depends on age,service and how many hours you'd be dropping,
known some get a decent lump sum then get made back up 2 or 3 years later

[Surreypostie]

Over 25 years, mid 50's for example, dropping from 39 to 25hrs seems good to me. To me that would have to be 14 hours x 52 weeks x 15 years. They would gain in the long run as paying less in NI contributions and holiday pay but doubt it would be that good.

[taxi4leighton]

dont know where you get the 15 years x from
most would be 3 years
normally its for over 60s
would be good deal for them

[coxie]

If it's done correctly at your office it should go on seniority. We just had a repick and a few of the older guys took a buy down to do an early morning sorting shift of 25 hours a week.

[Tuffers1875]

Here's what happened in our orifice. They wanted 4 bods to go from 39hrs to 23.5 over 3 days. Three volunteered and got it with nice lump sums thank you very much. If you want a buy down go for less days and working a full day over working 5 shorter days. I was one of them and it's the best thing I ever did

[PhilthyPhil]

How does buy down work? Got to be a decent payout or nobody would take it.

As I understand it the terms are the same as VR but pro-rata for the reduction in hrs. So say you went from 39 to 19.5 hrs you would get half what you would get for VR.

[Surreypostie]

I get the 15:years from how much longer you have till state pension age. 3 years would be sod all.

[Fatboyslim]

Buy down is great if your over 56, as it has massive impact on your pension contributions if your less, as your pension is based on your best 3 years from your final 7 years.
Beware & seek advice

Been giving this matter some thought - interesting topic...

For anyone with longish service. We should be in the original POSSS. Now, as we all know that is now closed. We no longer contribute to the original POSSS. Now covered by the new career defined salary scheme. Would a buy-down make a big difference to the new scheme? To say its reliant on doing 3 good years from the age of 58-65? Surely the difference is not all that great?

Or am I missing something here. I'm no pensions expert! So, again how can it be great if you are over 56?

C'mon pension experts - your thought please...!

[taxi4leighton]

15 years is nonsense
it wouldnt be attractive for RM to offer so much
the most you would get would be total annual saving x 3
so dropping from 39 hrs to 32 hrs a week would get you approx 10k
which i think is tax free