Transfer civil service pension or start another scheme.

banthecar

Hi all,
Coming towards the end of a divorce process. The marital home has been sold and the money made from the sale will clear the outstanding debts :beer: and give me a 25% deposit on a new property (property is £105,000).
I work in a civil service job but i'm also self employed, the self employed work represents about 1/3 of my income. (combined net salary of employed and self employed is about £38,000)

Here's the plan - I'm 43 now, I plan to have the new mortgage cleared in 7 years then quit the civil service job and just do the self employed work. I really don't have expensive tastes, cycle most places and live cheaper than most people I imagine, so clearing the mortgage that quick won't be an issue.
The only thing i'm not sure about is what to do about a pension. Over the next 7 years i'm going to try and buy more years in my classic civil service pension. When it comes to leaving that job I will have done about 25 years, do I just leave that pension and claim it when im 65 or transfer it out to another scheme or start a new scheme now to run alongside the other pension and just keep paying that when i am only doing the self employed work?

Thrugelmir

Leave it in the scheme. Will you be retiring at 65?

banthecar

Don't know to be honest, the self employed work is performance based - i'm a juggler but I also do tutoring work. I might not retire at 65 but I might want to slow down.

hugheskevi

You cannot buy more years (it was replaced in 2008 with Added Pension, which allows you to buy a fixed amount of pension).

You will be moving from classic to the new post 2015 scheme in April.

Classic has a normal pension age of 60, not 65, so you should be planning on drawing it at 60 even if you retire later.

You will not be able to move the pension anyway in the future - transfers are going to be banned from April 2015.

As well as considering Added Pension you might want to consider purchasing an effective pension age in the new scheme (reduces the normal pension age by up to 3 years). Personal pensions may well also have a role in smoothing income between age 60 and state pension age.

atush

I agree I would look at buying added pension, and perhaps a personal pension alongside.

The added pension in the main if you intend to work to scheme age, focusing on personal pension if you retire early