Redundancy/JSA and Pension pot

Jennifer_Jane · 23 January 2014 at 11:16PM

A friend of mine will possibly be made redundant in the near future. I know that he would be able to get JSA for 6 months without being means-tested or requiring to have less than £6,000 in savings (I don't know what savings he has, if any).

I wanted to check about his pension pot, however. He's been paying into a company pension for the last 7 years, and that is all he has - as far as I know - and he won't get the full basic state pension in 6 or so years' time. (He lived abroad which is why he only has 7 years or so Company Pension pot).

He is coming up for 60 and I wondered if Company Pensions are counted as savings or are protected up to a certain age?

If he needs to use the pension pot now, he will definitely have to go on Pension Credit in the future, so I wondered if Pensions were treated differently from normal savings.

Hope someone can help (and yes, he will go to Citizen's Advice Bureau, but just cannot get there at the moment).

Thanks for any help.

teddysmum · 24 January 2014 at 12:08AM

Not quite the same, but I knew someone who went bankrupt and the receivers were unable to touch his company pension, as it had no redemption value until they reached 65.