Pension Transfer Troubles

steviola

Hi,


I'm a long time lurker on these boards, looking for some opinions on the best way forward with an issue I'm having.


I am helping my Dad simplify his pensions as he gets closer to retirement age. He's in his late fifties and had 5 separate pensions which he found hard to track and monitor with various charges.


I helped him to write to each pension company and confirm he had no annuity guarantees or penalties for transfers. There weren't so we went ahead and opened up a SIPP with interactive investor (iii.co.uk).


3 of the pensions transferred in a reasonable time (within a couple of months) - all good.


2 of the pensions are with Phoenix Life - this is where the problem starts. First they have insisted that he sign their authorisation forms in addition to the forms that we sent to iii - which the other pensions companies didn't ask for (Aviva and Scottish Widows) which we did promptly.


Now they have written to him with a letter which I've summarised below.


This stinks to me of them trying to hold onto the money. I understand they need to do some due diligence but it seems over the top - iii are fairly well known aren't they?


What is the best next move for me in this? Should I get iii on the case? I don't have most of the information that they have asked for!


Thanks in advance,


Steviola


"We are contacting you in relation to a Pension transfer request that we have received from the Lifetime SIPP Co Ltd that instructs us to transfer your Pension.


Unfortunately we cant transfer the pension funds until we establish that the receiving scheme is not operating pension liberation - which is against tax rules etc. We know how tempting it must be for you to access your pension but both you and we could be charged lots of tax and fines if we don't check the receiving pension properly.


Please now send us the following:
- a copy of the trust deed that established the pension scheme you wish to transfer to
- a copy of the Scheme Rules for the receiving pension scheme
- a copy of the HMRC PSS Registration Certificate for the receiving scheme
- details of the investment service providers of the receiving scheme
- copies of promotional material, emails or letters about the receiving scheme
- evidence that you are an employee of the employer that established the receiving scheme
- details of how you became aware of the receiving scheme and what information you have been told about it


We will also write to HMRC to check on the receiving scheme


Don't worry, we'll keep your pension money safe for now. Once we receive everything we'll make a decision about whether we can transfer the money"

TH1878

steviola wrote: »

Hi,


I'm a long time lurker on these boards, looking for some opinions on the best way forward with an issue I'm having.


I am helping my Dad simplify his pensions as he gets closer to retirement age. He's in his late fifties and had 5 separate pensions which he found hard to track and monitor with various charges.


I helped him to write to each pension company and confirm he had no annuity guarantees or penalties for transfers. There weren't so we went ahead and opened up a SIPP with interactive investor (iii.co.uk).


3 of the pensions transferred in a reasonable time (within a couple of months) - all good.


2 of the pensions are with Phoenix Life - this is where the problem starts. First they have insisted that he sign their authorisation forms in addition to the forms that we sent to iii - which the other pensions companies didn't ask for (Aviva and Scottish Widows) which we did promptly.


Now they have written to him with a letter which I've summarised below.


This stinks to me of them trying to hold onto the money. I understand they need to do some due diligence but it seems over the top - iii are fairly well known aren't they?


What is the best next move for me in this? Should I get iii on the case? I don't have most of the information that they have asked for!


Thanks in advance,


Steviola


"We are contacting you in relation to a Pension transfer request that we have received from the Lifetime SIPP Co Ltd that instructs us to transfer your Pension.


Unfortunately we cant transfer the pension funds until we establish that the receiving scheme is not operating pension liberation - which is against tax rules etc. We know how tempting it must be for you to access your pension but both you and we could be charged lots of tax and fines if we don't check the receiving pension properly.


Please now send us the following:
- a copy of the trust deed that established the pension scheme you wish to transfer to
- a copy of the Scheme Rules for the receiving pension scheme
- a copy of the HMRC PSS Registration Certificate for the receiving scheme
- details of the investment service providers of the receiving scheme
- copies of promotional material, emails or letters about the receiving scheme
- evidence that you are an employee of the employer that established the receiving scheme
- details of how you became aware of the receiving scheme and what information you have been told about it


We will also write to HMRC to check on the receiving scheme


Don't worry, we'll keep your pension money safe for now. Once we receive everything we'll make a decision about whether we can transfer the money"

To a 20 year old administrator (been there, done that) at Phoenix, III or The Lifetime SIPP company will mean nothing to them and, although it seems draconian, I would rather them do that than people getting ripped off.

However, I would try and get someone more senior involved to get things moving.

philwal_2

Send the signed phoenix discharge paperwork from phoenix to iii with a covering letter they will then be able to send the requested information to satisfy phoenix.

It may be a pain but phoenix are only looking after your father's best interests and ensuring that he is not either breaking the law or being scammed.

Linton

Philwal is correct. I had to go through a similar process when I transferred my pension to a SIPP. Just answer the straightforward questions that are meaningful to you and put them in the covering letter for iii to pass on to Phoenix with the technical data.

jamesd

It doesn't appear that Phoenix are very competent. Iii are hardly small players and this smacks of Phoenix not even bothering to record which quite popular schemes they have already dealt with in the past. It appears inconceivable to me that this is the first time that they have ever been asked to carry out a transfer to iii.

It appears that they didn't even bother to pay attention to the facts of the case, for:

steviola wrote: »

He's in his late fifties... "Unfortunately we cant transfer the pension funds until we establish that the receiving scheme is not operating pension liberation

A person in his late 50s has no need of pension liberation because their pension is already liberated by the change that happened in April this year. There are plenty of other risks but needing pension liberation isn't one that applies to a person of this age. Of course they could still be a possible victim of a pension liberation scammer.

OldBeanz

Filter it through III, it may be a pain in the proverbial but as others have said everyone in the industry is trying to cover their own proverbial.

dunstonh

2 of the pensions are with Phoenix Life - this is where the problem starts. First they have insisted that he sign their authorisation forms in addition to the forms that we sent to iii - which the other pensions companies didn't ask for (Aviva and Scottish Widows) which we did promptly.

Most pension providers require their discharge forms to signed. There are some exceptions and you list two but they are in the minority.

Just get the forms signed.

This stinks to me of them trying to hold onto the money. I understand they need to do some due diligence but it seems over the top - iii are fairly well known aren't they?

The ombudsman has ruled against firms not doing sufficient due diligence. The Lifetime SIPP is not a well known SIPP. They are a small player and its unlikely Pheonix see many requests from them and if the name is not known to the person then they are quite correctly carrying out extra checks as they are required to do.

They are not doing it to delay. They are doing it to protect their backsides from future complaint that you allowed them to transfer to a scam. There has been an increase in complaints on this front and the pension ombudsman and financial ombudsman are giving conflicting outcomes. This is a current hot potato and has appeared several times in the financial press in the last few weeks. If you answer the questions you will be fine. your SIPP provider will give you anything you need to fill gaps.