Pension Question

markwilliams82

Hi everyone. Sorry if I do any mis-spellings in this message but I'm half asleep but with money worries on my head and seeing as I've been meaning to post this for a while I thought I better do it now.

Basically last month I had a pension statement come through the post from an old employee pension scheme I had with Standard Life when I was in a job I had approx 2+ years ago. I had forgot all about this, and I havent made any payments into it, it was purely a work contribution pension. Yet the balance of my loan is nearly £2500.


Obviously I know I need a pension, but at the same time I am trying to become debt free, and should be able to pay off my £16k loan within a year (3years before the deadline) and then I'm able to live my life and get on with saving to move out etc.
I am wondering, seeing as this is regarding a pension I had completely forgot about is there anyway I could get this pension money into my bank account and close the Standard Life pension so I can concentrate purely on the pension scheme that I set up myself and know all about. Because in all honesty, this Standard Life pension was set up when I was younger and had no real knowledge about and so don't know any of the details.

If I remember rightly, I think I did ring Standard Life when I first got the letter, but I thiink I recall them saying they can only put the money into another pension scheme.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Paul_Herring

is there anyway I could get this pension money into my bank account

In short, no. Once it's in a pension scheme, it's there until you retire.

You could (if it's financially better for you) transfer (as SL mentioned) the funds to the:

pension scheme that I set up myself and know all about

markwilliams82

Yeah I will be doing that when I pay off my loan and start with my own payments.
But I was hoping there would be a way I could use the £2k I've got in my old works pensions to help pay off my loan.

When I worked for the Environment Agency, and I left there pension scheme, they actually gave me an option of taking the money that was built up

dunstonh

When I worked for the Environment Agency, and I left there pension scheme, they actually gave me an option of taking the money that was built up

Different type of pension that used to allow you to withdraw your contributions, minus tax if you left in the first two years.