Felicísimo, a 71-year-old worker, has had his retirement pension denied despite having contributed more than 33 years to Social Security (12,244 days) throughout his working life. The reason, according to the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Extremadura, is that he was not up to date with payments to the National Social Security Institute (INSS) when he was self-employed and had a debt of 13,903.14 euros in unpaid installments.
Apparently, this worker applied for a contributory retirement pension for the first time on May 17, 2018, at which time he was 66 years old, but Social Security denied it. The reason is that he had a debt with Social Security for not paying contributions for 1 year and 9 months when he was self-employed and paid contributions under the RETA (Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers). The total debt was 13,903.14 euros.
Social Security, before proceeding with the denial, invited you to pay the debt (“invitation to payment”), as regulated in article 47 of the General Law of Social Security (consultable in this BOE). Although he had a period of 30 calendar days to make the payment effective, this worker did not do so.
Years later, exactly on March 13, 2023, he tried to request it again, with an effective retirement date of December 2022 (Social Security allows up to three months retroactively), but it was denied again. Now, the problem was not unpaid fees and rather that it did not comply with the specific deficiency regulated in article 205.1 b of the General Social Security Law. In other words, he did not have two years of contributions in the last 15 years. In fact, he only had 122 days of contributions, when the regulations require at least 730 days.
Debts do not prescribe to access the pension
The non-compliant worker decided to go to court and, although at first the Social Court No. 5 of Badajoz agreed with him, granting him the pension, the Superior Court of Justice of Extremadura rejected it, after an appeal from the General Treasury of Social Security.
The TSJ explains that, unlike the General Regime, in the Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers (RETA) the worker himself is the only one responsible for paying his contributions. The ruling indicates that it is “an essential condition to be entitled to the retirement benefit to be up to date with the payment of the due contributions on the date on which the benefit is deemed to have been incurred.”
Although the worker wanted the debts to count as prescribed, the TSJ says that “it cannot be claimed that those contributions not paid before the occurrence of the causative event serve to prove the deficiency itself.” That is, if the worker did not pay when due, the mere fact that the debt expires does not automatically convert those months into valid contribution time to collect a pension.
The ruling ends by saying that it cannot be left to the worker’s free will whether or not to pay his contributions and rules that, “as long as he does not pay the amount for which the invitation was made, his retirement pension cannot be recognized.” For this reason, this 71-year-old man will not be able to access a retirement pension, at least until he meets all the requirements established by Social Security.