HMRC - Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) advice

[Converse2020]

My MIL is widowed, is 77 and has dementia. She has just received a letter from HMRC regarding HRP and the fact they don’t have this on her national insurance record. She’s being asked to check her eligibility.

My wife and I are trying to help her but having looked at the eligibility checks there are some questions that my MIL/we cannot answer with 100% certainty.

For example. It asks her if she paid the reduced rate of national insurance contributions in any of the years.
- She doesn’t know/ can’t remember.

We hoped HMRC would know this but it seems not. We can see she has a number of years (10) with no national insurance contributions but don’t know if this means much.

We have a lasting PoA to help her on items like this but that is last resort as it’s not that easy to register them all and we do wonder if we are wasting our time as her state pension looks more than expected, meaning perhaps whilst she might not be getting HRP perhaps she is getting other items (widowed pension??) and can’t get any more.

Does anyone know if HMRC can help if we try to call them or can she answer as best as she can reasonably recall and then submit and will HMRC then actually check perhaps against records that aren’t visible on line?

Thanks in advance

[Converse2020]

Thanks Eric. I’ve seen and read the guidance but it’s the devil in the detail of knowing if reduced NIC’a were used, or the exact dates of events 35 years ago that don’t work so well for someone with dementia.

[Converse2020]

Thanks for this. Very helpful.