Can I cash in my company pension, due to redundancy?

GaryG

I am in the process of being made redundant i.e. I have just been given a 3 month notice period.


I have been paying into a company pension hosted by Scottish Widow. Can I take what I have built up as cash with my redundancy, or do I need to transfer it to another pension until retirement?

[Deleted User]

You can't access your pension until your retirement age.

You can move it, or leave it where it is.

atush

Better yet, big made redundant means you should consider putting any redundancy money over 30K into your pension.

GaryG

atush wrote: »

Better yet, big made redundant means you should consider putting any redundancy money over 30K into your pension.

30K :rotfl:I do like late night comedy! I'll be lucky to get the legal minimum!

Linton

You cannot access your pension money until you are 55 unless you are terminally ill with less than a year to live or are in one of a listed set of jobs that force you to retire earlier eg professional football player.

Otherwise you have the option of leaving the money where it is or transferring elsewhere.

Using up your pension money to deal with something hopefully short term like redundancy is usually a very bad idea. Can you live on a state pension of £170 per week for perhaps 30 years?

marlot

GaryG wrote: »

...
I have been paying into a company pension hosted by Scottish Widow. Can I take what I have built up as cash with my redundancy, or do I need to transfer it to another pension until retirement?

When I was made redundant, I kept my SW pension where it was.



I believe they changed it from a Group Personal Pension to a normal personal pension. My company had done a deal with SW, that as long as I paid in £20 a month, I got the same low charges that I'd had when I was employed.

MallyGirl

My husband has the same £20 a month deal with SW.

Albermarle

I believe they changed it from a Group Personal Pension to a normal personal pension

After leaving a company I left the Standard Life Pension pot where it was .
15 years later I decided to add more money to it . SL converted it from a GPP to a PP and I kept the 0.5% employer discount even though I had not touched it for so long.

jamesd

GaryG wrote: »

I have been paying into a company pension hosted by Scottish Widow. Can I take what I have built up as cash with my redundancy, or do I need to transfer it to another pension until retirement?

As long as you're 55 or over you can take it. Redundancy and retirement age make no difference.

If you're 55 or over or close, let us know and we can describe the relevant ways to save yourself a lt of money using pensions.

GaryG

jamesd wrote: »

As long as you're 55 or over you can take it. Redundancy and retirement age make no difference.

If you're 55 or over or close, let us know and we can describe the relevant ways to save yourself a lt of money using pensions.

I've been reading all the replies carefully, and waiting for a good time to respond. Thank you all so far.


It seems that I do not qualify for early access to my pension:

• I am not terminally ill
• I am not near 55
• My job does not have a specialised early retirement age e.g. footballer

Any further advice is very much welcomed, but I guess I just leave it with SW until 55, then have a rethink.

Marcon

Linton wrote: »

You cannot access your pension money until you are 55 unless you are terminally ill with less than a year to live or are in one of a listed set of jobs that force you to retire earlier eg professional football player.

Members joining any type of registered pension scheme on or after 6 April 2006 cannot have a protected early pension age (except for block transfers). It only applies to those who were actually in their scheme before then and have done nothing to 'lose' their right to a protected pension age - e.g. transferring out of the scheme on an individual basis, rather than being part of a block transfer, would mean you lose the protected pension age.