Don't use Hargreaves Lansdown

jsinc

Malthusian wrote: »

Now you've asked I'm not, and Money Advice Service certainly suggests I'm wrong (they say it is good practice for employers to pay for advice).

I'm now confused as to what Section 48 does mean by "independent advice", as it certainly isn't in the "IFA" sense.

My former employer paid advisers on employees' behalf to advise them, and that adviser signed off. Not sure if it makes a difference but company was being wound up, and involved DC + RST underpin (deferred annuity) rather than usual DB transfer.

DairyQueen

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

Can I just say that anyone with a degree in common sense does not transfer a DB pension unless they are greedy, in need of money or other. No Financial adviser I know, and the last one I spoke to in setting up my SIPP, would advise on transferring a DB scheme. In fact, they wont even take you money in telling you the answer is no.

Wrong. There are circumstances when a DB transfer is the best option for an individual. I am one of those individuals. For most people it's a bad idea but there are exceptions.

I have reduced life expectancy.
OH is well-pensioned and had no need of the widower's benefits.
I have a high risk tolerance.
I am no expert but have been managing a self-invested portfolio for some years.
We have sufficient guaranteed, retirement income to cover all non-discretionary expenses and also have other assets.
My DB pension was poorly index-linked.
I received a x32 CETV offer.
I have no dependents and no children. My nephews are the beneficiaries of my estate.

My circumstances are such that a positive recommendation was expected, and the right (and common sense) decision for me. Greed and/or need of cash didn't enter the equation.

The ceding scheme also paid my IFA fees. Lucky me. So, yes. Mathusian, it's good practice for the (ex) employer to foot the IFA bill, regardless of the recommendation.

Given that OP was an insistent client I assume that his/her circumstances were not exceptional.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

So after over a week we are no closer to the truth as to why OP insisted on a DB transfer at all?

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

DairyQueen wrote: »

Wrong. There are circumstances when a DB transfer is the best option for an individual. I am one of those individuals. For most people it's a bad idea but there are exceptions.

I have reduced life expectancy.
OH is well-pensioned and had no need of the widower's benefits.
I have a high risk tolerance.
I am no expert but have been managing a self-invested portfolio for some years.
We have sufficient guaranteed, retirement income to cover all non-discretionary expenses and also have other assets.
My DB pension was poorly index-linked.
I received a x32 CETV offer.
I have no dependents and no children. My nephews are the beneficiaries of my estate.

My circumstances are such that a positive recommendation was expected, and the right (and common sense) decision for me. Greed and/or need of cash didn't enter the equation.

The ceding scheme also paid my IFA fees. Lucky me. So, yes. Mathusian, it's good practice for the (ex) employer to foot the IFA bill, regardless of the recommendation.

Given that OP was an insistent client I assume that his/her circumstances were not exceptional.

No question your circumstances are different to OP.

Question is that OP has not given us the reason why he went again HL advice!

jamesd

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

Can I just say that anyone with a degree in common sense does not transfer a DB pension unless they are greedy, in need of money or other. No Financial adviser I know, and the last one I spoke to in setting up my SIPP, would advise on transferring a DB scheme. In fact, they wont even take you money in telling you the answer is no.

You really need to talk with better IFAs, or perhaps they were just replying to you based on their knowledge of your preferences.

In current conditions I normally expect to see drawdown income 50% higher than a private sector DB pension, with 100% spousal pension, better inflation increases (not usually nil or capped at 2.5%), low chance that income will fall as low as the DB, inheritance likely and the option to guarantee much of the income, retire earlier and better match income to varying spending needs. For suitable candidates it can be life changing in a very good way.

A close to no brainer transfer case would be a scheme paying 3% of the CETV as income, 50% spousal pension, no inflation increases on half the income and CPI capped at 2.5% on the rest. If it's a couple close to state pension age they could defer claiming their state pensions to get also st twice the income with uncapped inflation increases and approaching 90% of the full DB as spousal pension, and actually better than that when inflation i accounted for.

At the other end would be someone in say the LGPS with its poor transfer value, hatred of investment volatility, long life expectancy and far from state pension age.

Appropriate advice for the two situations is radically different and the second one would be triaged away from transfer advice unless there was some other major factor. While the first with higher guaranteed income, better inflation protection for the income and higher spousal pension income after inflation should expect a recommendation to transfer.

There are just too many variations to be absolute about it.

jamesd

ZingPowZing wrote: »

Malthusian - Hargreaves Lansdown provided a full transfer recommendation. They provided a declaration to the effect that they had provided advice

Just to ensure that I understand this correctly, did:

A. HL provide the legally specified statements that they provided advice about the transfer, they had the permissions, their FCA number and your and the scheme's names?
B. and did the DB scheme accept that and agree to proceed with a transfer?

What did they tell you about not facilitating before you agreed to buy the service from them?

[Deleted User]

jamesd wrote: »

Just to ensure that I understand this correctly, did:

A. HL provide the legally specified statements that they provided advice about the transfer, they had the permissions, their FCA number and your and the scheme's names?
B. and did the DB scheme accept that and agree to proceed with a transfer?

What did they tell you about not facilitating before you agreed to buy the service from them?

jamesd - HL provided a declaration with all permissions but that wasn't sufficient to effect a transfer to an alternative provider, in my experience.

Naturally a client will ask about their process, what happens in the event of a negative recommendation? "Then you just find an alternative provider." They state that there are reputable firms willing to accept such transfers without the signature of a financial adviser on their application forms. I still don't know who they are.

HL are covered in their t and c's, which is a single sheet slipped into their paperwork at the outset, but that is not how they sell the service. The denouement of going through the phone-book before the deadline, trying to find an alternative provider willing to provide a haven is one that I wish to warn others against on this thread.

I know I made outsiders' mistakes. My main concern at the outset was losing the whole pension to a scam. As the best known name in the business, they will continue to attract potential insistent clients, but Hargreaves Lansdown's first priority is their own interest imo.

[Deleted User]

So are you Mr M then?
https://www.ombudsman-decisions.org.uk/viewPDF.aspx?FileID=216717

Prism

ZingPowZing wrote: »

Naturally a client will ask about their process, what happens in the event of a negative recommendation? "Then you just find an alternative provider." They state that there are reputable firms willing to accept such transfers without the signature of a financial adviser on their application forms. I still don't know who they are.

Why didn't you try and find one of those providers first with the knowledge that it was unlikely that HL would recommend a transfer at all, before paying for a service that you would find of little other benefit

Malthusian

ZingPowZing wrote: »

Malthusian - Hargreaves Lansdown provided a full transfer recommendation. They provided a declaration to the effect that they had provided advice. What they wouldn't do is engage with an alternative SIPP provider and my experience was that I was unable to transfer because the compliance dept of every potential SIPP provider that I approached advised that they would not accept the transfer without the signature of HL's financial adviser on their own form.

As I understand it the advice was negative, and I only know of one SIPP provider that will accept DB transfers without a positive recommendation (aka insistent clients). So if you were approaching multiple SIPP providers the form was not the issue. With one exception, none of those multiple SIPP providers would have accepted the transfer regardless of whether HL provided the declaration on HL's own letterhead, the new SIPP provider's form, or a 20-foot tall neon sign strapped to the side of a cow.

(I am open to the possibility that there are one or more SIPP providers open to insistent clients that I don't know about. But so far every time I've asked if there are others, I've been given names that have now stopped accepting insistent clients.)

If you approached that one SIPP company, in possession of HL's declaration which met with all legal requirements, and they refused to accept the transfer on the grounds that they wouldn't accept HL's declaration that advice had been given, and insisted on HL signing their own declaration, it was the new SIPP company being intransigent.

Not HL, they'd done their job and they can't be forced to jump through other people's hoops when they'd provided all that was legally required.

In that scenario a complaint to the new SIPP company would seem the obvious way forward.

Though it might not get you anywhere as the Ombudsman can order redress for the inconvenience but can't force anyone to do business with you.

(No, I'm not going to name that provider that accepts DB insistent clients. Other people in the pub will probably stick their neck out. I am not going to as that's too close to advice.)