UK pension transfer

[upsidedown]

Has anyone used UK pension transfer advisor that they were happy with in regard to quality of service and the related costs in the Wellington region?

[teamplayer2003]

Just sent you a PM with some details.

Hope its helpful

Tim

[PhilB]

Suggest that you get advice from a couple of people and tread very carefully. The lure of early access to funds seems to blind some people in making these decisions.

[StevieD]

yes, tread carefully, new rules came in last year stating that you can only get 20% of your total pension, with the remainder being kept until you are 55. This is a binding agreement between the UK and NZ, assuming you are from there of course!

[Manks]

Teamplayer2003 - would appreciate those details too as I will be looking at my options when we arrive in a couple of weeks.

Cheers

[teamplayer2003]

Making the decision to take cash out of your pension, which is not really a good idea as a pension is designed to do just that, provide a suplimenty income when you retire.

BUT you can if you fit the right criteria.

Getting cash out of your Uk Pensions

Number 1: You need to have been a non uk tax resident for 5 years or aged 55 or over.

Number 2: The rules on getting cash out of your pensions depends on if the funds are locked or unlocked. Locked means you have to wait till age 55 to access the cash. Unlocked will depend on the rules of the fund you are using for the transfer.

Basically:
Locked = Government contributions.
Unlocked = Personal Contributions.

As I do this as a minor part of my job I wont go into the full details as I dont want to upset anyone by advertising but if anyone wants to know more please PM me and I can point you in the right direction.

Also remember the rules can change at anytime.

Tim

[PhilB]

Lots of people out here are making lots of money out of people transferring pensions from the UK. I would be very wary especially if you have final salary benefit. The only happy people will be the transferring scheme who will have removed your liability from the scheme.

Also bear in mind that many UK final salary schemes are currently looking at reducing liabilities and one way of doing this is through offering enhanced transfer values.

If someone has a defined contribution fund then there may be reasons to transfer a fund.

[teamplayer2003]

Couldnt agree more PhilB, sometimes it is not in your best intrests to transfer, I find that people with older final salary scheme do under stand this. I have only had to turn one away for this reason. There are alot of younger people with 5 to 10,000 pounds tucked in a pension without such benefits. But everyone is different and some people are getting robbed!

[stephenpalfrey]

Couldnt agree more PhilB, sometimes it is not in your best intrests to transfer, I find that people with older final salary scheme do under stand this. I have only had to turn one away for this reason. There are alot of younger people with 5 to 10,000 pounds tucked in a pension without such benefits. But everyone is different and some people are getting robbed!

Hi Tim

Any chance you can send me the details too. Have FS local govt pension and not sure what to do - transfer or leave it here. Moving in January

regards steve

[James 1077]

I've transferred my pension over here in order to get the cash out of it; mainly because I want to pay off the mortgage faster and so will use the cash (when I get hold of it in 2.5 years) to do just that. I disagree with borrowing to invest and that is what you are doing with a pension scheme if you have debt.

As with Kiwisaver the reason that I went into the schemes in the first place was for the employer contributions so being able to get hold of these earlier is great! Unfortunately I'm not old enough to have been able to get into a final salary scheme - if I was then I probably wouldn't have left the UK!

One of the things that we are wondering about though is whether to transfer my wife's teachers pension over. This is final salary and she has about 6 years of contributions into it - the problems are that we have no idea who to contact regarding it and what the benefits of keeping it are (i.e. how much she can expect out of it). Without this I can't do the cost/benefit calc to see if it is worth keeping where it is!

Does anyone know anything about the teachers' pension schemes? And, importantly, how you go about contacting them?