Can you buy out your pension?

MattB147

Hi, first time on here so please be gentle!

I paid into a pension scheme with my previous job, and when I finished there I no longer wished to carry on the contributions.

I contacted Hargreaves & Lansdowne whose pension scheme it is, and they said I would have to wait till I'm 60yrs to receive the money. This would be pointless as there's only about £1k in it, but they also said the pension is transferable.

My question is does anyone know if I can transfer this pension to another company who would allow me to cash in the policy, and any idea what the fee would be?

Many thanks for your help,

Matt

seven-day-weekend

You can't cash in any pension until you are at least 55, when you can take a percentage (I think it's 25%) as a lump sum..

dunstonh

Whilst it may be £1000 now, you will surely have more pensions so you can transfer it to those.

The age 60 rule applies to triviality where all your pensions combined are worth less than 1% of the lifetime allowance. Something you wouldnt really want to aim for.

MattB147

I'm surprised by this, as when I left a job with HSBC I received a cheque for all the payments I'd made to their pension fund whilst I was there.


I assumed this would be the case elsewhere?

Paul_Herring

MattB147 wrote: »

I'm surprised by this, as when I left a job with HSBC I received a cheque for all the payments I'd made to their pension fund whilst I was there.

I'm guessing you weren't there very long?

EdInvestor

MattB147 wrote: »

I'm surprised by this, as when I left a job with HSBC I received a cheque for all the payments I'd made to their pension fund whilst I was there.I assumed this would be the case elsewhere?

Typically only applies to occupational pensions where someone leaves after less than 2 years' work.You lose the company conts, and have to pay back tax relief and contracted out rebates.You can now opt to transfer the whole fund to a PP or your new company scheme and keep those extras.

With personal pensions/group PPs once the money is in, it stays there.

PoorDave

MattB147 wrote: »

I'm surprised by this, as when I left a job with HSBC I received a cheque for all the payments I'd made to their pension fund whilst I was there.


I assumed this would be the case elsewhere?

Presumably this means you gained back all the payments from your own salary, but lost the employer's contributions and tax relief that you would have got?

I seem to recall my wife getting a similar thing when she left at least one jobs, but i am fairly sure the deal is as stated above.

I know when i make contributions to my HL SIPP there's a warning to the effect that "you shouldn't put this cash in unless you can cope with not seeing it again until you're old and grey" (my wording)

EdInvestor

PoorDave wrote: »

I know when i make contributions to my HL SIPP there's a warning to the effect that "you shouldn't put this cash in unless you can cope with not seeing it again until you're old and grey" (my wording)

:T Good to hear they issue that warning.

We have constant threads in here from people who have obviously never been told about what must be one of the more important features of a pension.:rolleyes:

Looks like the execution-only broker offers better consumer protection than many regulated advisors.

dunstonh

I'm surprised by this, as when I left a job with HSBC I received a cheque for all the payments I'd made to their pension fund whilst I was there.

HSBC used to offer a final salary pension and if you left within 2 years they would either transfer your pension (the better option) or refund your payments minus tax relief etc (the worse option).

Money purchase schemes operate differently to final salary schemes.

We have constant threads in here from people who have obviously never been told about what must be one of the more important features of a pension.:rolleyes:

Looks like the execution-only broker offers better consumer protection than many regulated advisors.

You mean the HL text contains the same text on all other pensions. Yet because someone chooses to read the HL text that makes HL better?

HL offer less consumer protection than advice cases so dont try that one.

Dithering_Dad

Hi Matt,

Just out of interest, if you've cashed in a previous pension and are now looking to cash this one in, I assume you intend using something other than a traditional pension scheme to provide for your retirement. If so, what would that be?

Cheers,
DD.

MattB147

Hi DD,

The trouble is I'm not in a position right now to put anything by for the future, got quite a cashflow problem at the moment.

So rather than take out a loan I was looking at other options, namely is there a way I could get these pension contributions back.
Doesn't seem so by the looks of things, not to worry.

Thanks,
Matt