Can I move my pension into another savings plan?

jono7gold

Is there anyway I can move the money in my pension to access it or maybe move it to an ISA or other savings plan??? Im 32years old and have had the pension for about 12 years.

dunstonh

No you cannot. There is no reason to either. Virtually the same investment options exist for pensions as they do for ISAs. If you put the same funds in both you will get identical returns.

You can transfer between pensions though.

jono7gold

Thanks for the response, I understand thou as well that I cant get to my fund earlier if I needed to, is this true do you know? thanks

EdInvestor

The earliest you can get any money out of a pension is age 50, shortly rising to age 55.

dunstonh

jono7gold wrote: »

Thanks for the response, I understand thou as well that I cant get to my fund earlier if I needed to, is this true do you know? thanks

Pensions are for retirement. That is why they are called pensions. As Ed says, you cannot access them until 55 at the earliest in your case. The Govt insist on that because they dont want the tax relief and tax benefits given to enhance the value to be used on things other than retirement.

You cannot get access to this money.

Dithering_Dad

As Ed has said many times, it's shocking the number of people who get pensions and don't realise that the money is locked away for retirement.

I guess a lot of people start pensions with their companies and so don't read the T&Cs quite as closely as they would if they had set up the pension themselves?

dunstonh

I think people are just grabbing at straws at times and really know the answer and are just hoping for some loophole.

Although the biggest clue is in the name of the product. PENSION.

Dithering_Dad

Definition of a Pension - accommodations especially at a continental European hotel or boardinghouse.

No wonder people get confused

MrMicawber_2

It would be carnage if people could get at their pension funds. You can just see millions going on a grand beano and then wondering (blaming someone else as well probably) why they had no income in retirement.

One of the biggest pros of a pension is not being able to get at the money.

EdInvestor

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

As Ed has said many times, it's shocking the number of people who get pensions and don't realise that the money is locked away for retirement.

I guess a lot of people start pensions with their companies and so don't read the T&Cs quite as closely as they would if they had set up the pension themselves?

One source of confusion is that occupational schemes normally gives the option of taking contributions back if an employee leaves within 2 years. By contrast contributions to personal pensions are locked in from the start. Since most people don't really know the difference between a group personal pension offered by a company and an occupational scheme, it's not surprising that there's confusion.

It should be a requirement that a company IFA dealing with a GPP makes this point in a clear and upfront way before the employee signs up.