Cashing in Pensions

robj101

Hello all, this is my first post so please excuse my lack of knowledge in this area.

I currently have 4 pensions to my name, 1 with Scottish Widows, 2 in a company scheme and one that i am currently maintaining. The combined value of the first 3 is around 20k.

I was wondering if i should bring them into my current company scheme or should cash them in to pay off some of my mortgage.

My mortage is with Virgin One Account and has 5 years left. I wonder if there is any advantage to cashing them in an reducing the term of the mortgage or will have need to pay penalties if i do this?

Any help will be greafully received
Rob

bendix

Sigh.

Yeah, cash them in. Best option every time.

Call them up this afternoon and tell them what you want to do. You'll get the cheque in the post within a week.

CLAPTON

you can take some cash from a pension once you are 55
how old are you?

robj101

Thanks for the replies i am 42

yelf

you cant cash them in.

bendix

yelf wrote: »

you cant cash them in.

you can't? i thought you could. I thought the fact they are called pensions, that you get tax relief, and that they're clearly constructed as long term products designed to alleviate our poverty after our working years are over, was all beside the point, and that we could have the money whenever we wanted.

Particularly if it was to pay for a house, or a car, or a holiday with me mam in Benidorm?

How could I have got it so wrong?

Are you SURE?

dunstonh

Aged 42 and just 20k in the pensions. Thats not good.

Rather than cash the money in (which you cant do) you should be aiming to build the pensions up whilst you still can make a difference.

Shimrod

dunstonh wrote: »

Aged 42 and just 20k in the pensions. Thats not good.

There's £20K in three out of the four pensions, we don't know what is in the fourth pension. At age 42, it's possible one or both of the prior company pension schemes are final salary, in which the fund value could be significantly less than the 'benefit' of the pension, so the pension situation might not be as bad as the OP makes it appear.

chesky369

The OP should probably be informed that Bendix is being - how shall we say - ironic.

robj101

Thats true - there is substantually more in the 4th pension. The others have been sitting in the accounts since i left the employment. There is one final salary pension, i'm not sure of the exact details though

RichandJ

bendix wrote: »

Sigh.

Yeah, cash them in. Best option every time.

Call them up this afternoon and tell them what you want to do. You'll get the cheque in the post within a week.

Evil.:rotfl:

Robj101, you need to contact the administrator of the final salary scheme and ask for a copy of your leaving service statement which should show you exactly the level of benefit (not value) you had on leaving, how it is made up and how each different element increases. I would not ask them for a transfer value(TV) at the moment because the value given will only be guaranteed for three months. In that three months you would have to contact your current scheme's administrators, find out if they still accept transfers in, wait for them to calculate the benefits you would receive if you transferred and fill in all the paperwork (and there's normally a LOT) befeore the transfer could go ahead. Far better to find out what your benefit was first then go back to the previous admin if you can and still wish to investigate a transfer. Also if you have a TV, decide you want to go ahead and the three months has expired there is generally a cost for another TV to be calculated - my firm charge £350 + VAT. You really need all the information before going any further with this.