IFA Fees for Pension Advice

Yes, it's excessive. And he has no idea what the annual growth rate will be.

What is he proposing to invest your new pension in, and how is it so different from the National Mutual pension?

This will cost me around 1.24 % per year whch is paid to the pension company and the also gets payment from

That is in the ballpark of expectation assuming, as you say, it covers all charges (adviser/fund/platform/provider) and includes ongoing servicing. if it excluded ongoing servicing, then it would be around 0.5% ish

He says though that there is also a one off fee paid to his company of 5%. This is 5% of my total Pension Pot (and comes out off my Pension pot ). Currently this would amount to a one off payment of almost £8000.

Now that is extremely high. No-one should be paying as much as that for a pension switch. Typically no more than £2000.

Investment returns are unknown. There can be valid reasons for moving old pensions into modern ones but they really need to be more solid than "better returns". Technically, a potentially better return can be used if you were in an investment fund that was consistently poor performing (such as a zombie with profits fund) and there were no other funds available on the existing pension and you are moving it onto a modern alternative with better potential. However, I don't know if the phrasing about getting better growth of 7-8% a year is yours or exactly what the adviser said but using wording like that is not good as nobody knows what the future is going to be.

He says that the new pension is more managed - on a monthly basis as opposed to the generally managed pension that I have already,

That is the language of BS.

I don't like the idea of paying an IFA for ongoing advice or any actively managed pension product with fees as high as you mention. Your IFA seems to be saying some pretty silly things......If anyone dangled an 8% carrot in front of me, I'd walk away.

Linton wrote: »

This sounds nonsense. You dont need to manage a £160K portfolio on a monthy basis. If he is talking about the funds themselves any management would be done continuously. What investments do you have in National Mutual and what is being proposed? Was the IFA involved in the NM pension or has he come on the scene subsequently?

I have never heard of National Mutual. Google tells me that it was taken over by GE Capital in 2001 and closed to new business. It has been a dormant company since then. NM seems to have been absorbed by Windsor Life who were involved in many complaints a few years ago. After then I cant find anything.

If OP's 'pot' was held by Windsor Life then it will now be held by ReAssure. If it is also within a With Profits policy then these are Dunstonh's "zombie" funds.