Age 75 deadline passed but pension lump sum not paid

littlerock

My brother has a small pension pot with Abbey life (£24000) from the time some years back when he was briefly self employed. He has been deferring it until this year but will be 75 this month. So when he read the latest payment options letter from AL, saying their scheme does not allow him to defer beyond age 75 (he has to chose by that date to either take a lump sum or be given an annuity) he decided to take the lump-sum.

At the start of September he phoned Phoenix Life , who now administer his AL scheme , and told them he wanted to take his pension pot as a lump sum. (They do not seem to be contactable by email.) Since then he has been sent all sorts of paper work to read, explaining his options, and had several conversations with PL about wanting a lump sum, but has not managed to extract the actual claim form from them. They keep promising but it does not arrive.

He will now be 75 at the weekend and still does not yet have the relevant form from PL . He is not very financially aware and is worried they will now try to impose an annuity by default as he has not filled in the claim form for a lump sum by his birthday.

At my suggestion he wrote to PL last weekend, formally stating he wanted to take his AL pension pot as a lump-sum and that he had explained this to them and was now only waiting on their forms to do this. Is this sufficient statement of intent before age ,75.? I assume it is. He is a very anxious person and not very IT literate to look things up himself so I said would post it up here .

SonOf

So when he read the latest payment options letter from AL, saying their scheme does not allow him to defer beyond age 75 (he has to chose by that date to either take a lump sum or be given an annuity) he decided to take the lump-sum.

Any reason he didnt want to transfer it to a modern pension that goes beyond age 75?

is worried they will now try to impose an annuity by default as he has not filled in the claim form for a lump sum by his birthday.

They wont as a) there is no regulatory reason to do so any more and b) they are the ones holding it up and will be able to see it and c) The FCA doesnt allow annuities to be bought like that any more.

squirrelpie

At my suggestion he wrote to PL last weekend, formally stating he wanted to take his AL pension pot as a lump-sum and that he had explained this to them and was now only waiting on their forms to do this. Is this sufficient statement of intent before age ,75.? I assume it is.

It should be but it would be even better if he sent it by recorded delivery so he can prove that they received a letter from him. It would then be up to them to prove they hadn't received what he claimed to have sent.