What to do with old pension

middza

I have 2 pensions at the moment, one that is frozen and one that i currently contribute to.
The one that i contribute to, is a company final salary scheme which is very good. The frozen one, was not as good, but has about £6k in it. Would it be a good idea to close it and take the money to pay off my outstanding credit cards and then maybe put the rest towards my mortgage.

sick_of_being_skint_2

I thought you werent allowwed to close pensions? I have a standard life pension that has about £600 in it but they wont let me close it and cash it it

CLAPTON

in general you cant take money out of your pension until you take the pension, i.e. after 50 years old (or whatever the rules of the pension are) you can normally take 25% as cash and the rest as a regular pension

middza

I was not aware of that, i tried to transfer it but they would not allow me as im in a different scheme. Someone at work said that when they opened up the better scheme they closed their old one and took the money. I will have to contact the relevant people at work to find out.
Thanks

madduck

You need to find details of the scheme that you are looking to close. Some schemes allow you to reclaim money paid in (minus any tax benefits gained) if you leave within a certain period of opening it. With the NHS scheme for example, if you leave within 2 years of joining you can get the money back. If you have been in for more than 2 years it is frozen. However, there may be a certain time period for reclaiming.

Best option, to ask and see what options are. Are you sure that you can't transfer other earnings into your new scheme?