Pension Freedom

xylophone

hi looking for some advice i am 57 years old i work self employed but very part time (10 hurs at most a week) as i have been ill and wont return full time. I have a pension pot of 85k which is 5 separate pensions all held with royal london) as i have been ill for a couple of years and i have run up 12k of credit card bills so i was thinking if i took the 25% tax free to pay off the cards but my question is do i have to invest the rest somewhere else or or can i just leave it where it is for royal london to invest on my behalf. also will taking this do anything to my state pension. I have phoned and i have enough qualifying years to get a full state pension. can anyone help please

It may be that Royal London would be prepared to transfer the pensions into one plan that facilitates drawdown - this would permit you to do as you wish.

Otherwise you would need to transfer to a provider who would facilitate drawdown.
In the first instance, you could contact Royal London.

With regard to your state pension, you can obtain a new state pension statement.

https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

KevinG

captaintee wrote: »

It was the fact that if I died anytime after about 4 years any balance would disappear and not go to my dependents.

That's how pensions and annuities work - that's how they have always worked. There is no "balance" as such. The difference now is that you don't have to accept it, you can take the money.

netg

This might be a ridiculous question, so bare with me!

I am a long way off retirement, but have a reasonable amount saved in various pension schemes.

I was wondering if there was a way of using my pension fund to invest in property, rather than as part of a traditional managed investment?

Based on the fact that my various pensions appreciation is generally poor (thanks overpaid bankers?!), and the property market offers both an instant return (rental income) and long term appreciation (value).

ex-pat_scot

netg wrote: »

This might be a ridiculous question, so bare with me!

I am a long way off retirement, but have a reasonable amount saved in various pension schemes.

I was wondering if there was a way of using my pension fund to invest in property, rather than as part of a traditional managed investment?

Based on the fact that my various pensions appreciation is generally poor (thanks overpaid bankers?!), and the property market offers both an instant return (rental income) and long term appreciation (value).

Yes - there are some SIPP providers that will allow investment in commercial property, or property funds.
It's a specialist area, and very high risk.
You will need to consider items such as liquidity and gearing (you may be able to use the capital in your SIPP for the "deposit" on the property, and borrow the remainder. The loan would be on the SIPP so might be secured against your other SIPP assets).
Property funds are also not without their challenges. In a crash market (such as 2007-8), many property funds would not allow withdrawals until they had sold down a number of properties in their portfolio).
Pensions A day in 2006 was going to allow residential property to be part of a retirement portfolio, but was not eventually allowed.


As for the "greedy bankers" - your ire is a little misplaced perhaps. "Greedy fund managers" perhaps. "Greedy pension companies" also.


[There is a solution though, and its name is "Vanguard tracker". My opinion, obviously. DYOR].

gadgetmind

netg wrote: »

Based on the fact that my various pensions appreciation is generally poor (thanks overpaid bankers?!)

My pensions have done very well, but I never invested a lot of money in banks.

xylophone

so bare with me!

What a suggestion.....:eek:

https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/the-decline-of-the-true-sipp/ might be of interest.

You might wish to take personal advice on the pension arrangement to suit your circumstances?

http://www.thepfs.org/yourmoney/find-an-adviser/

atush

Your pension performance has nothing to do with overpaid bankers, but does have to do with what YOU choose to invest in.

So what did you invest in? You can change the investments in your pensions if you want to.

So why do you think property will be better? You can only invest in commercial property in a SIPP, not residential. And if we brexit, i expect companies to move out of London into the EU so i would not be investing that way right now myself.

Malthusian

A rather curious belief - that bankers are greedy and venal (so much so they're solely responsible for the poor returns in someone's pension) but solicitors, letting agents and builders are paragons of selfless virtue and work for free.

bigadaj

I'd slightly disagree.

Banks make up a huge weighting of the ftse 100, and as many people's pensions are invested overweigth in the uk, particularly large cap, then the resultant poor performance has no doubt impacted many pensions.

Still not a reason to move eveyhting into buy to let though, more a reason to invest your pension in a wide range of asset classes and geography.

gadgetmind

I've never really understood massive home bias nor large cap bias. The is particularly true in the UK given how our large caps are concentrated into just a few sectors like digging and oil.