Overview

In a perfect world, pension scheme trustees would always pay the correct amount of benefit to the correct beneficiary at the correct time.

Unfortunately it is not a perfect world and mistakes do happen. Where trustees discover that they have made an overpayment (or made a payment to the wrong person) they will be duty bound to seek repayment from the recipient where there is a reasonable prospect of recovery and disproportionate scheme assets will not be expended doing so. In cases a recipient may be able to successfully hold onto the overpayment by asserting a "change of position" defence to a claim for repayment.

In this briefing Herbert Smith looks at how the defence of "change of position" has developed through case law, considers how the Pensions Ombudsman has viewed this defence and summarises the main take-away points for practical implementation.

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