15.—(1) A claim for a retirement pension of any category, and for any increase in any such pension, and an award on such a claim, may be made at any time not more than 4 months before the date on which the claimant will, subject to the fulfilment of the necessary conditions, become entitled to such a pension.
(2) A notice for the purpose of section 27(4) of the Social Security Act 1975 (retirement from regular employment) shall be given to the Secretary of State in writing and shall specify a date, being a date not earlier than the date on which the person giving the notice attains pensionable age and not later than the expiration of the period of 4 months after the date on which the notice is given, as the date of that person’s retirement.
(3) Where the person giving notice of retirement specifies a date earlier than the date on which he attains pensionable age, the notice shall be treated as if the latter date had been specified.
(4) For the purposes of that section 27(4) the prescribed period shall be the period of 12 months.
(5) Where a person who gives notice of retirement in accordance with paragraph (2) above is, or would but for the fact of his retirement, be in receipt of sickness, invalidity or unemployment benefit for a period which includes the date specified in the notice as the date of his retirement then, if the date so specified is not the appropriate day of the week for payment of retirement pension in his case, the notice shall be treated as if it specified instead the date of the next following such pay day.
(6) Where the spouse of such a person as is mentioned in paragraph (5) above also gives notice of retirement and specifies the same date of retirement as that person the provisions of that paragraph shall apply also to the notice given by the spouse.
(7) For the purposes of facilitating the determination of a subsequent claim for a Category A, B or C retirement pension, a person may at any time not more than 4 months before the date on which he will attain pensionable age, and notwithstanding that he does not intend to retire from regular employment at that date, submit particulars in writing to the Secretary of State in a form approved by him for that purpose with a view to the determination (in advance of the claim) of any question under the Act relating to that person’s title to such a retirement pension other than the question of retirement, and subject to the necessary modifications, the provisions of these regulations shall apply to any such particulars.