Using Pension Fund to purchase property abroad

sunshine111

Hello,

Can somebody please advise if I can you use my pesion fund to help towards the purchase of a residential property abroad, the remainder of the funds for the purchase will be used by savings I have.

Thank you

McKneff

Welcome to the boards Sunshine 111

More info is needed, but in the meantime:-

You cannot take pension funds out till you retire or are 50 years of age (55 in April next year) and then you can only have 25% of them in a lump sum, the rest has to buy you an annuity which is why you joined the pension fund in the first place.

sunshine111

I was wondering if I could transfer my pension into a SIPP and use it as an investment in the purchase?

McKneff

Honestly, i have no idea but if you wait till tonight there are one or two brilliant advisors re pensions on the boards ie duncanh and edinvestor.

Please say how old you are for their information

project500

Years ago I got a loan back on my pension fund.
It worked something like this
Borrow 75% of your fund at 1% above base rate .
Money borrowed is secured against your existing paid for house.
You pay annually the interest back to your pension fund
It effectively means you borrow off yourself.
I used the money to start a business which was very successful and
I then saved up capitol out of profits and cleared the debt to myself
Which you need to do anyway before retiring.

EdInvestor

sunshine111 wrote: »

I was wondering if I could transfer my pension into a SIPP and use it as an investment in the purchase?

No, SIPPs aren't allowed to invest in residential property, only commercial.

kippen_noedel

The only way to do this is to invest in a company that owns property.

To do this on an individual basis, ie for a single property you'd also have to take into consideration the costs of running a company so is unlikely to be cost effective. The company would have to be run in such a way as to be acceptable to the Trustess of the SIPP, no way to cut corners here.