Pension advice please?

jamesd

nobby2012 wrote: »

My own research suggests a SIPP may be best, but if I prefer the funds to be managed a Stakeholder.

Stakeholder products are largely obsolete and more expensive than the best pensions on the market today and are not generally worth considering.

SIPPs are just one form of personal pension and either a SIPP or standard personal pension will allow use of managed funds. Stakeholder products will probably restrict you to a narrow selection of mostly managed funds.

The key difference between a SIPP and other personal pensions is that a SIPP can allow direct holdings of individual company shares and some other things, like covered warrants or direct ownership of commercial buildings, perhaps with a mortgage. They also allow all of the things that any other personal pension or stakeholder personal pension allows, and more. SIPPs that allow some of the more esoteric investments tend to be more costly than other personal pensions but there are also some very cost-competitive SIPP options.

Standard pricing for DIY SIPP or personal pensions is something like 0.75% a year for managed funds, plus some form of platform fee, though some are still on old pricing of 1.5% or so that they have to switch people out of within a couple of years, sometimes with a rebate; in these the 1.5% pays for the platform fee and if an IFA is used it used to pay for the IFA but no longer can. If an IFA is used there would be an additional fee for that but the IFA might have access to a product with lower platform fee.

nobby2012

Hi again, found a new IFA. He's to set me up in the Balanced Fund with SEI, charges are around 0.6% with his cut on top equals about 1.6%, he intends to set it up as a SIPP. He is also to take a cut for moving the whole pots of the 3 pensions in to one. How does this sound?