pension transfer query

steakpiegravy

Hi

I recently worked for a company for about 1 year and paid into a company pension (money purchase rather than final salary).

On leaving the company I was offered a refund (about £900) or the abilty to transfer it to transfer (amount £1800 - double due to the company payments).

It made clear sense to me to trnasfer it to myown stakeholder pension which I had for 4 years at my previous job and kept going at £20 a month in the meantime)

However I came across a problem. Scottish Equitable - who run my stakeholder pension - will not accept my transfer unless I have a letter from my financial adviser "allowing" me to do so. This seems a bit strange. Apart from anything i dont have a financial adviser. Am I missing something? I have already confirmed there is no charge for the transfer and the annual charge for the scottish equitable shceme is 0.5% which seems OK.
I dont want a refund as I'd lose £900 but equally i dont feel I need a financial adviser say so (including whatever the charge is) to transfer my own money. I've phoned Scottish Equiatable o check adn eventually got someone to say I could do this myself, but they then wrote to me saying I couldnt! I'm almost at the stage of moving my pension but dont want to cut my nose off etc.
Any ideas?

dunstonh

However I came across a problem. Scottish Equitable - who run my stakeholder pension - will not accept my transfer unless I have a letter from my financial adviser "allowing" me to do so. This seems a bit strange. Apart from anything i dont have a financial adviser. Am I missing something?

Most providers are very wary of accepting transfers from occupational pensions. Not so much money purchase but final salary schemes. With these they require an IFA to sign off on the transfer. This is because the FSA have said a number of times over the last year that they would consider execution only/direct offer final salary transfers as mis-sales unless proven otherwise.

Whilst you say its money purchase, the refund or transfer you describe sounds more like final salary.

I'm almost at the stage of moving my pension but dont want to cut my nose off etc.

It does seem a bit silly to throw away £900 just because you want to DIY.

steakpiegravy

Thanks for the background dunstonh. The info about the FSA is useful as i guess that means its unlikely I will have much joy if I try the same thing elsewhere.
For info its definitely not final salary. I've got a frozen one of those too - no way would i transfer it now. This one is just a money purchase with employer contributions which i would lose if I cant get it transferred.

dunstonh

If its just money purchase then the provider should accept it without an IFA signing off on it unless it is some peculiar scheme with retained benefits of some sort.

SandC

Could you speak to your old company and ask them if they either have an in-house IFA or they use one on a consultancy basis who would do it for you? I know the one we use doesn't charge, any commission he gets comes from the providers.

castleman_2

back in 2006 scottish widows asked me to leave them as my company stakeholder pension wasnt making any money as i couldnt afford any more payments . .so i transferred back into serps, yet i cant add my stakeholder to my state pension , it must be transferred to another pension company yet , hm revenues and customs had not sent me any paperwork regarding this basically the got my stakeholder pension money laying dormant in the government accounts , yet my stakeholder is protective rights , so i cant cash in until im 65 help, unfortunatley ive got no paper work to chase up and my previous company i worked for went bust many yeras ago

dunstonh

castleman wrote: »

back in 2006 scottish widows asked me to leave them as my company stakeholder pension wasnt making any money as i couldnt afford any more payments . .so i transferred back into serps, yet i cant add my stakeholder to my state pension , it must be transferred to another pension company yet , hm revenues and customs had not sent me any paperwork regarding this basically the got my stakeholder pension money laying dormant in the government accounts , yet my stakeholder is protective rights , so i cant cash in until im 65 help, unfortunatley ive got no paper work to chase up and my previous company i worked for went bust many yeras ago

I think you are mixing up a few things there. Stakeholders have a minimum value of £20. So, there is no reason for Scot Widows to ask you to leave them.

Also, you dont have to pay into a pension to contract out and you cannot normally contract back in again retrospectively from a stakeholder plan.

You cant cash a pension in at any time although if all your pensions are valued at less than 1% of the lifetime allowance at age 60 or later then you can take the value minus a tax charge.

It doesnt matter what happened to the old employer as the stakeholder scheme is yours.

steakpiegravy

A part answer to my own question.
I've searched on the cavendish website via the link on repensioning above. It notes that Scottish equitable (mine) and Scottish widows dont accept occuational pension transfers. It seems I need another provider!