Help please with my CIS pension

hnm26

Hi everyone and thanks for reading in the first place.

I have a pension i started with the cis when i was 17. I am wanting to see if i can unlock it because i stopped paying into it after about 6 years as i could no longer keep up the payments to it (and i was only paying the minimum too). I am now 30 and the pension is worth around £6000 i think. I was just wondering if there was any way i could get it out with being still so young as all i`m getting is that you have to be around 45 before its possibe. I think 15 years of waiting to get at it is pointless as it is only a pittance and i really could do with it now.

Any advice will be apprecciated thank you.

Kirk

EdInvestor

hnm26 wrote: »

I am now 30 and the pension is worth around £6000 i think. I was just wondering if there was any way i could get it out with being still so young as all i`m getting is that you have to be around 45 before its possibe.

55 in your case, sorry.

I think 15 years of waiting to get at it is pointless as it is only a pittance and i really could do with it now.

You don't actually know this do you?What is this pension invested in?Does it have a guarnatee attached?

You may find it will be quite a useful addition to your retirement income in time.And if it isnpt doing much where it is and has no guarantee, then you should move it to somewhere else and start treating it as a proper investment.

dunstonh

Having just £6000 in retirement funds at 30 does put you on the back foot a bit. You should be in the tens of thousands ideally by now.

Unless you are looking forward to living on a basic state pension of £4500 a year, you should think about increasing this £6000 rather than trying to get access to spend it.

You are lucky that your state retirement age has increased to 67 so you have an extra 2 years of contributions and growth (which in effect means you in the same position historically as a 28 year old with a 65 retirement age).

Milarky

There is a rule whereby you can draw the bulk of a pension as cash - called 'triviality' - but only from the same normal retirement date as everyone else - that is aged 55 as Ed has pointed out. However you should not bank on being able to because the triviality rule is only for those who have reached that age and whose total pension savings are unintentionally small. Yours are small enough today to qualify as things stand but if you continue to work after 2010 (or so) you will then be 'offered' an 8% of salary pension scheme which you would have to opt out of. (The so called 'Personal Accounts'.) Assuming you do nothing therefore, you will be adding to total pension savings and almost certainly, come aged 55, will then have too much to be able to take advantage of the rule. In other words you will be locked into the 'income' option (although 25% is still available as a lump sum from age 55) so it is better to get used now to seeing your £6000 as '£1500' cash plus an income based on a deposit of '£4500' about 25 years from now. The incentive to save into a pension is always going to be a 'jam tomorrow' exercise. Some people are happier with this idea than others.

dunstonh

There is a rule whereby you can draw the bulk of a pension as cash - called 'triviality' - but only from the same normal retirement date as everyone else - that is aged 55

It's 60 now (A day change).