Can I cash in my pension?

dunstonh

so if i could release / sell / cash in my DB pension i could pay off my rental mortgages and have enough to live on.

Which in normal times would likely be a very bad thing to do.

problem is im 40... do i really have to wait 15 years to unlock this money?

Yes. Indeed, it may well be later than 55 if the scheme do not allow earlier retirement or the penalties for early retirement are too high to make it cost effective.

its my money cant i just do with it as i please?

Its not your money. It is held under an arrangement (which can either be trust based or contract based) where you are the beneficiary.

im lost among scammers and crap google click baited searches hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

Only scammers will do it. They will take 20-30% of the transfer value at the same time and about 3 years later, HMRC will come after you for 55% tax on the FULL value for taking an unauthorised payment. What you are doing with these is committing fraud.

kenneth_mcgrew

Thanks for the responses,

Why in normal times would it be a bad thing, i have owned property for 20 years and the income has remained stable?

my scheme is 55, un-reduced - its an old scheme which my company stopped offering the year after i joined, but those already signed up retained it.

i thought it all sounded too good to be true about unlocking the money now, hence asking the question.

so i guess i need to find some other way of paying my remaining debt off and bridging the gap between now and 55.

dunstonh

Why in normal times would it be a bad thing, i have owned property for 20 years and the income has remained stable?

£ for £, the defined benefit scheme would have beaten property. So, taking the cash out of that pension (if you were old enough), would have been very costly

kenneth_mcgrew

ah i see, yes at the age of 55 £ for £ its better, if i had access now there are much better investments.

dunstonh

kenneth_mcgrew wrote: »

ah i see, yes at the age of 55 £ for £ its better, if i had access now there are much better investments.

There are not better investments. Nothing (conventional) beats a defined benefit scheme for what you get vs what you pay. Investments will not match it.

atush

kenneth_mcgrew wrote: »

ah i see, yes at the age of 55 £ for £ its better, if i had access now there are much better investments.

No, you dont really see.

roy_kilner

hi iam 62 and have taken 25% of my pention and now taking an annuity can i take the rest of my 75% less tax thank you

p00hsticks

roy_kilner wrote: »

hi iam 62 and have taken 25% of my pention and now taking an annuity can i take the rest of my 75% less tax thank you

If you've converted the 75% into an annuity then no, you can't.

jamesd

When you buy an annuity to pay you regular income, the money spent to buy that annuity is spent and no longer owned by you. You get whatever the annuity you spent it on provides and nothing evermore from the money you spent.

You don't have to spend the whole of the 75% on one or more annuities. You can place some of it into a drawdown account instead and draw on that whenever you like.

You were probably suckered into spending it all on an annuity, since annuity sellers aren't required to tell you about state pension deferral, which typically pays about twice as much income per Pound spent. The places where you accumulate your pension don't have to all options and some might tell you about only the options they want to offer saying "you can only do x" when the real answer is "we only offer x but if you transfer you can get the full range of options".

However, if you haven't yet bought the annuity, or did so only a few weeks ago, please say more about your situation since you may be able to cancel the purchase and split the money in ways that seem to better do what you appear to be after. If it was only weeks ago you could usefully phone the annuity seller and tell them that you want to cancel the purchase for now while you consider your options. You're allowed to transfer after taking the 25%, you're allowed to use something called the open market option to buy annuities from anyone after taking the 25% and you're allowed to transfer to use drawdown somewhere else after taking the 25%. Six months is the time allowed from taking the 25% to doing one or more of those things, if I recall correctly.

Scottygogs

I'm a deferred member of a BT scheme. I have other excellent pensions that can wait until later, but I might take the BT one now. The CETV is 120k. However, I can't find a place to xfer it to that will allow me access now as I'm only 50. Any ideas????? Ps I can access the BT pension scheme now and I've had that confirmed in writing