Transferring Pension without IFA

jgoldman

I'm thinking about transferring money from a defined contribution pension to my SIPP without financial advice, having set up my SIPP with independent financial advice. I'm aware that I need to check if I would lose any financial benefits or receive any charges for doing so. Please let me know if you think this is fraught with danger or if you know of a suitable template letter.

Many thanks,
jgoldman

jamesd

Once you have checked for things like a guaranteed annuity rate it's straightforward and you'd just fill out a form with the pension you want the money transferred to, they would provide the form to use.

dunstonh

lease let me know if you think this is fraught with danger or if you know of a suitable template letter.

Our template letter has about 18 questions on it. It's not fraught with danger if you know what you are doing.

zagfles

Usually the new SIPP provider will have a form you fill in with details of the old provider etc and they'll request the transfer and sort it all for you.

mgdavid

Just phone your SIPP provider with all the details to hand and tell them what you want done. They will do the necessary from there. Simple.

jgoldman

Dear all,

Thanks for your replies. I've checked the available form and it states that I've checked whether I will lose benefits or incur charges. So my question remains how can I be certain that they haven't omitted anything. Does anyone have a sample letter that I could use to send to the pension company? Then I can always refer back to the letter if they suddenly reveal an unexpected charge or loss of a gain.

Thanks again,
jgoldman

jamesd

They haven't missed anything because they haven't checked anything. The form asks you to confirm that you have checked whether you will lose benefits. It is up to you to do that checking, not them.

jgoldman

What I mean to say is how can I make certain the pension provider hasn't omitted anything not the SIPP provider. My concern is that simply asking the question are there any benefits I might lose or charges that I might incur might not reveal everything I need to know. Hence, I'm looking for a template letter to reduce this chance.

greenglide

When I did a transfer from an HBSC pension some years ago (initiated at my SIPP provider) HSBC provided a statement of the plan at that point and it contained statements that there was no GAR etc and no other benefits to be lost on transfer. I sort of assumed that this was standard and the losing provider would always do this?

dunstonh

My concern is that simply asking the question are there any benefits I might lose or charges that I might incur might not reveal everything I need to know.

When you ask them, you need to be specific in what you are asking them. i.e. has the plan got xyz.

it is not their place to tell you what the plan may or may not have. Most providers do have a basic layout which gives a number of things automatically but usually that is insufficient (at least for adviser level audit trails) and several more things tend to be added to the list based on our templates.

I sort of assumed that this was standard and the losing provider would always do this?

No. Some do, some don't. Some will just tell you what you ask them to tell you.

bigfreddiel

dunstonh wrote: »

Our template letter has about 18 questions on it. It's not fraught with danger if you know what you are doing.

could you publish the template and 18 questions please. It would be very interesting to see what they are, not to mention educational.

Thanks fj