SIPP, Hargreaves Lansdown and Funds

LongTermLurker

derx wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with Hargreaves Lansdown. They spam me with their emails, and when I actually asked them to help with a pension fund transfer, they couldn't even be arsed to reply.

Always really good on the phone, and don't think I've ever had marketing or promotional emails from them, cos as with Aegis, I've opted out.

If you've registered with them, they send you Investment Times every so often, which is a good read and there's always a shed load of forms and reply-paid envelopes inside, including one to transfer pensions! My pension transfer was quick and speedy.

Just to balance things out...

sabelu

How long does it take for hl to transfer to their sipp on average

dunstonh

sabelu wrote: »

How long does it take for hl to transfer to their sipp on average

The issue isnt the receiving scheme but the transferring scheme.

LongTermLurker

sabelu wrote: »

How long does it take for hl to transfer to their sipp on average

^^ as he said. I transferred a Scottish Equitable pension and SE were happy to get rid of another customer and I was transferred out faster than a chicken vindaloo.

On the other hand, if you are moving from a particularly lax company, you might find they delay the transfer - HL will deal with the paperwork quickly though.

kennyG_4

Hello

I'm new to this forum and new to SIPPS. Thinking of consolidating my existing pension plans into a SIPP. Unsure if I've got the time or the skills to manage the investments myself. Thinking of going with a firm of advisors (Mazars) who sound good, claim they "actively manage" all the investments BUT charge initial set-up fee of 3% of the fund plus AMC of 1% plus some dealing costs. If I pay these gold plated fees am I likely to get a gold plated service? Keen to hear about the reality of running a SIPP yourself if you have limited knowledge of stock market trends, risk management, etc. Anyone know of a league table of SIPP managers? Any thoughts or experience about the DIY v. professional advisor option would be gratefully received! THanks

purch

Unsure if I've got the time or the skills to manage the investments myself

The S in SIPP doesn't mean "somebody else"

Do you really think a firm of 'advisers' who make 'claims' will do a better job of managing your pension than using a PP ?

egarobar

My IFA told me he reckoned that the HL SIPP was not such a good idea for a fund of £20K - better for bigger amounts.

dunstonh

egarobar wrote: »

My IFA told me he reckoned that the HL SIPP was not such a good idea for a fund of £20K - better for bigger amounts.

And he is correct. The fund value is too small to really diversify it in many funds and get a real benefit from that. A decent personal pension would be cheaper and do just a good a job with that fund value.

jamesd

egarobar, it depends on which investments you want to use.

HL resells some very inexpensive tracker funds and charges 0.5% a year on ETFs or other investments that don't normally pay commission. HL can be very competitive with some personal pensions if you're only using a very limited range of investments or want to use funds or other investments like ETFs or covered warrants or direct share holding that are often not available in personal pension products. In the middle of the range of investments it's more likely that a non-SIPP personal pension could be cheaper, for example of you want a comparatively limited limited range of popular funds and sector tracker funds and are content to stick with funds and not ETFs, shares or covered warrants.

It's easier for non-SIPP personal pensions to compete at larger fund sizes because HL doesn't discount the annual management charges, so when you use a fee paying IFA to reduce the charges on a personal pension that allows that you can end up paying less. Harder if your pension pot is small enough for the charges to be significant but in the past I've had quotes as low as £100 for an execution only personal pension that eliminated part of the annual charges from the investments. At that price the personal pension could be cheaper in as little as a year if it saved 0.5% in annual fund charges on £20,000, which just happens to be the normal commission level.

My guess is that the IFA would say HL is more competitive for small pots (which I think is more correct) than large ones if you had a large pot instead.

save every penny, I'd hope that it would depend on the investments used, since those are what produce the risk.

sabelu

Just about to take my 25% from the above accounts. Is it true that HL do not consolidate the two streams but in actual fact take the 25% seperately from both funds individually? Then consolidate the amount.