Transferring to Drawdown

REDSHOES

Hi Linton.

We did try to access an IFA directly last year, but without even checking the policy or any GAR rates they refused as they said it was too risky- the usual thing about us potentially coming back and suing them in years to come. I know you can ask to be an 'insistent client'now but that wasn't explained at the time.

All we are trying to do is access my husbands old pension pot with IFA advice - re the new pension rules from April 2015. Pensionreports have said they can help us and we thought it would be easier than contacting an IFA directly just for them to refuse

sandsy

You need to stop the process with pensionreports.
It's just too risky. The alarm bells are ringing very loudly. Instruct Royal London not to deal any further with them or the so-called IFA in respect of your contract.

You need to find an IFA with whom you can have direct contact.
How can an IFA decide what is best for you if he has had no contact with you?

REDSHOES

sandsy wrote: »

You need to stop the process with pensionreports.
It's just too risky. The alarm bells are ringing very loudly. Instruct Royal London not to deal any further with them or the so-called IFA in respect of your contract.

You need to find an IFA with whom you can have direct contact.
How can an IFA decide what is best for you if he has had no contact with you?

We have had contact with an IFA - albeit by phone. He asked several questions about our attitude to pensions and what we intended to do with it.

dunstonh

He asked several questions about our attitude to pensions and what we intended to do with it.

An IFA should be asking about 100 questions approx. Many of which could be in conversation style but several is not enough.

apparently they need to be updated every 30 days.

No they dont

The whole process has taken 6 months so far. Is this normal?

Nope. It is about 2-8 weeks. Most of those will be waiting for the existing provider to supply details. Ex CIS plans take about 3 weeks. So, about a month for the whole process

Our compliance support company warned us not to take business from these cold calling/advertising unregulated introducer as the IFA takes on liability for what the introducer says or does. Plus, a lot of these introducers use unregulated investments which usually result in near or total loss. They just use the IFA to set up the SIPP and the introducer then does the investments. A really dodgy way of doing things.

Why are you not using a local IFA to do this? Probably a lot cheaper as the IFA has to pay the introducer. Whereas a local IFA wont have that overhead.

REDSHOES

dunstonh wrote: »

An IFA should be asking about 100 questions approx. Many of which could be in conversation style but several is not enough.



No they dont



Nope. It is about 2-8 weeks. Most of those will be waiting for the existing provider to supply details. Ex CIS plans take about 3 weeks. So, about a month for the whole process

Our compliance support company warned us not to take business from these cold calling/advertising unregulated introducer as the IFA takes on liability for what the introducer says or does. Plus, a lot of these introducers use unregulated investments which usually result in near or total loss. They just use the IFA to set up the SIPP and the introducer then does the investments. A really dodgy way of doing things.

Why are you not using a local IFA to do this? Probably a lot cheaper as the IFA has to pay the introducer. Whereas a local IFA wont have that overhead.

Thanks for your advice dunstonh

We have now contacted a local IFA who is coming round to discuss our options tomorrow evening. He said that because the IFA/pensionreports have not sent any reports out for us to sign re the new SIPP that completion is not anywhere near imminent.

I feel so relieved now. I was starting to feel there was something very wrong about how this was dragging on. First thing tomorrow we will ring Royal London to cancel any further communication with pensionreports.co.uk

AnotherJoe

REDSHOES wrote: »

I feel so relieved now. I was starting to feel there was something very wrong about how this was dragging on. First thing tomorrow we will ring Royal London to cancel any further communication with pensionreports.co.uk

Good. Excellent decision.

And note, just because you are trying to get hold of the money earlier, doesn't mean that getting that money earlier is the best way. Especially when you are only a year away at most from getting what may be a great annuity you would never get nowadays.

For example, financially you might even be better off borrowing to get a lump sum and then paying it off with the annuity from RL, if the annuity rate is higher than the loan rate. There will be other options as well.

Hopefully the IFA will look at what you want to do "get a lump sum" rather than what you've set out to do, which is "get hold of lump sum from Royal London".

You need to focus on your end goal (which IMO is a bit hazy - "freedom to invest/ use" ) rather than the single way you initially focused on achieving it.