Each pension fund gets a letter of its own

A pension is not a balance on a savings account. Each fund or each insurer with which pension was built up gets a letter of its own. That can be the fund of the last employer, an earlier fund, or an annuity (lijfrente) with an insurer. Ask for the pension overview and about former employers, and search the papers for pension and annuity. Make a task per organisation with the participant number, the date of your letter and the question whether there is a survivor's pension. A collective email to a wrong address is not a report. Report the death to the pension fund and wait until the body confirms what stops.

A survivor's pension is paid to the person the fund treats as entitled, often under the regulations. That money does not automatically land in the division of the bank balances. Ask the fund to whom it pays and from when, and wait for their letter. The Belastingdienst imputes a partner's pension against the partner exemption. You do not invent the formula or the level; you note that that imputation can apply. Put the fund's statement with the documents for the return; you do not make the return itself from the software.

Put a stopped old-age pension and a new survivor's payment on two lines. Do not mix them into one balance. A later payment of old-age pension after the date of death you book as you book a later payment of AOW. It stays visible and is not spent as an heir's income, until the fund writes whose amount it is. Ask for a specification if an amount comes in without a letter. The bank account on which the pension came in remains a separate item beside the payment. Only once the letter is there does the amount get a final place in the estate inventory or outside it.

A pension in own management (pensioen in eigen beheer) or an old policy that has been quiet for years remains a task until there is a written reply. A family member who thinks nothing is still running is not a source. Keep a nil statement just as carefully as a promise. For inheritance tax a small right can also count; whether that is so is decided by the return and ultimately by the Belastingdienst. Leave the amount empty until the statement is there. An empty field with an open task is more accurate than a figure from memory.

The partner who receives a payment afterwards has a relationship of their own with the fund. Those letters belong in the estate file only if they affect the estate inventory or the return, or if the partner shares them. Do not ask the fund to transfer the payment to the executor if the beneficiary is someone else. In the account and justification you put only amounts the estate receives or must repay. A right of the partner stays with the partner. That separation prevents heirs later claiming a payment that never belonged to the estate inventory.

This is an administrative checklist, not legal advice. The notary, the bank or the body concerned decides what this file needs and in which order. Ervazo keeps the tasks, the letters and the recorded values. The program does not send the letters, does not pay any debts and does not file a return. For each step, note the date, the person and the document you have received. What is still missing stays an open task. A ticked line means only that the administration has been updated. Do not fill in a pension amount for as long as the fund's statement is missing.