Pension Transfer mis-handled

Shane6955

In May I received a CETV for a deferred DB pension that offered me £150,000. As this seemed excellent value for a scheme that offered me a £4200 pension, I decided I would like transfer to a a drawdown scheme. I have bad health due to heart problems, another pension plan and no dependants.
I chose an IFA from a large reputable company, who agreed transfer was a "no-brainier", and quoted me £3500 to transfer. He said it would be achievable to do the necessary work before CETV expired on 24th July, as it was only 10th May. He said he would be back in touch 4-6 weeks as it took that long to complete report, etc.
I phoned after 5 weeks and was assured it was progressing without issue. I continued to phone and email weekly, and received same answer. I was becoming worried by early July when he still said there was no issues with getting this completed.
4 days later he phoned and said "Sorry, we can't do it, as pension administrator has not provided necessary figures, that I requested". To say I was stunned is a gross understatement, but he said he knew of someone who would it for me within the time. So I agreed to him arranging appointment.
New IFA was not able to do it before CETV expired, in fact so far we've only had initial meeting, as he has been on holiday.
I feel this is totally unacceptable behaviour from 1st IFA, and complaint to his company has resulted in total silence. Meanwhile I'm facing costs for new CETV, and increase fees from £3500 to £7500, as this is the fee that the new IFA is charging. I can't help being suspicious that this is a scam that these IFA's are doing, as they admit they are friends and the new IFA says he's done a few transfers for the original.
At a total loss as to what to do, surely there is some regulatory body that should investigate things like this? Looks like I'm also going to be hit by fall in new CETV too.
Original IFA said it couldn't be done because pension administrator did not send him the figures he required, but pension administrator said they got no request from him. Also, new IFA said all the figures were on the CETV, except for one that took 7 days to get after a phone call.
Appears I was lied to from start to finish. Has devastated me, and still not one step further forward.

xylophone

https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/how-complain

Was the first IFA a Pensions Transfer Specialist?

http://www.pruadviser.co.uk/content/knowledge/technical-centre/pension_transfer_conversion/#

tacpot12

Why not do the transfer yourself? It is a simple job.

Dazed_and_confused

Given your apparent unhappiness with the original IFA I am at a loss as to why you considering paying £7500 to someone the original IFA has told you about.

Maybe you've missed something from your op but that doesn't make sense (not to me anyway!)

GSP

I suggest contacting the trustees that hold the db pension.
You could explain what is happening and they might just honour the figure, even though its outside the 3 months.
Remember its an attractive offer, they want you out of their system. The £150k may have gone down to say £147k, but for a few thousand its not much to them to get you off the books.

Keep_pedalling

Which large "reputable" company?

dunstonh

Was the IFA himself a pension transfer specialist or was he using a third party company to do the pension transfer analysis? It sounds like this particular IFA is not pension transfer authorised.

In the last few months, there have been several issues with third party companies being involved. A couple of the major ones pulled out of doing it and were not able to complete any work in progress. And secondly, the FCA is looking into liability and standards when third parties are used (which is very often). This has also led to some suspending their services and stopping any work in progress.

If the IFA is not a pension transfer specialist themselves, they may not know what is needed or not and they would be getting info third party.

Which large "reputable" company?

That would be interesting as the majority of IFAs are small local companies. Very few could be considered large. Most of the large ones dropped their IFA status to become FA and the larger ones tend to be far more restrictive on high risk business (like pension transfers).

greenglide

tacpot12 wrote: »

Why not do the transfer yourself? It is a simple job.

It needs a report by a suitably qualified (I)FA first.

Then the DB scheme cannot refuse the transfer but no scheme is under any obligation to allow the transfer. Finding a provider who would accept such a transfer could be problematical so it is fairly normal to use the same (I)FA to do the transfer as well if they will.

want_to_save

tacpot12 wrote: »

Why not do the transfer yourself? It is a simple job.

if you have a db scheme over £30k you cannot transfer yourself you have to get independent financial advice

tacpot12

It needs a report by a suitably qualified (I)FA first.

I have take exactly that sort of advice from a pensions specialist on my db pensions. It cost £1000 for advice on two db transfers.

The IFA fee was for their advice only. With their recommendation I could have paid for the transfer to be carried out - they charged a fee per hour for the transfer work - which only requires an office administrator - or made the transfer myself. I had a DC pension pot that I wanted to move to a SIPP anyway and I set the SIPP up with AJ Bell for no charge and transferred the DC pot in. It took exactly 15 minutes of my time to fill the forms in and post it off to AJ Bell, who sent the transfer request onto the DC scheme administrator. You don't need to pay IFA advice rates to 'transfer' a pension.

Shane6955

Thank you all for your comments.
I asked the 1st if he was qualified to do these transfers, and he assured me he was. I'd already had one see me, who said he was and then admitted he had a friend who held the required qualification.
He had DipFA after his name, and I'm not an expert on the qualifications, I foolishly thought I could trust these professionals.
I can't do the pension transfer myself as it is over the £30,000 limit. And I have asked the pension administrator if they would proceed with the original CETV, but they won't.
I probably am being foolish to accept the 2nd advisor, but I was also under time constraints with the requirement to affect the transfer before my NRD which is Sept, so felt I had no choice.
The company involved was on unbiased, they have offices throughout the U.K. and numerous articles by their directors appear on financial sites. As someone who has never had a financial advisor they seemed a safe choice.
I am following the guidance for making a complaint, but it is only 6 weeks since I notified the company, and it says they have 8 weeks to reply.
I did the best I could, but obviously I was somewhat naive, and never realised that having to get a financial advisor to approve the transfer, was somewhat akin to swimming with sharks.