Pension transfer???

dunstonh

The bottom line is that taking money out of a pension before age 55 with the exception of ill health cannot be done legally.

If these companies are FSA regulated then report them. If they are not then it just confirms it is a scam.

jamesd

circus_48 wrote: »

Obviously the prospect of getting our hands on some cash is great to lower our mortgae payments

It's pretty easy in pure financial terms:

Investments have expected growth rates that are higher than the interest rates of standard mortgages. This means that any money paid off the capital of a mortgage is expected to make you worse off long term.

So only do it if you want to make yourself poorer.

Both your objective - stopping doing higher return investing to save lower return interest rate - and method - illegally getting money out of a pension - are flawed and will make you poorer.

If she's unhappy with the pension investment returns and it's not a final salary type she's free to pick different investments or move it to a place that offers the investments she wants so use.

xylophone

Your wife's pension is not dormant - it is deferred. From this http://www.capitahartshead.co.uk/web.chi/capita.w?A=4893&T=0&S=5114&P=5958 it seems likely that she was in a defined benefits scheme, - in 1998 probably final salary but you must check this with Capita. If so, she would have great difficulty in getting an IFA to sign off a pensions transfer.
http://www.barnett-waddingham.co.uk/news/2005/12/revaluation-for-early-leavers/ may be relevant. See also http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/workplace-pension-schemes/final-salary-schemes/revaluation