Not sure what to do or where to get advice.

elouise01582

With reference to MTB usually the only thing that will not count as deliberate deprivation of assets is paying off debt.

SSTJCKel

Some interesting comments..... Yes I did consider withdrawing a tax free amount to pay off the debts but from what i've read the thinking is you should have as much as possible invested in your pension so i assumed this would not be a good thing to do. This is one of the things i'm trying to get clarity about. Also if I took the value of the smaller pensions to pay off the debts is the tax free annual allowance that I can take 25% of each pension or 25% of all the pensions combined ?

xylophone

Does any funds you have in a pension pot disqualify you from means tested benefit like housing allowance? So if you had £100k in a pension pot but no other savings then would they count you as having no savings, or £100k in savings. Also, what if you have already moved funds into a drawdown product, you then control how much income you get from that product each year, so do means tested bebefits get assessed on how much you DO drawdown, or how much you COULD drawdown? Sorry slight thread drift really.

See  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pension-freedoms-and-dwp-benefits/pension-freedoms-and-dwp-benefits

xylophone

Also if I took the value of the smaller pensions to pay off the debts is the tax free annual allowance that I can take 25% of each pension or 25% of all the pensions combined ?

I have one larger pension with £100k in it. I have two others which aren't worth much one from a job which lasted 2 years and one job which lasted 6 months and i've been auto-enrolled in my current job for 2.5yrs. I got all the statements together and it appears I would get in total less than 3k a year from the pensions combined. So what do I do with them, should I combine all the pensions into one ? 

By "the smaller pensions" you mean the ones in bold above?

What kind of pensions are these and what is their value?

SomeMadeUpName

SSTJCKel said:

Some interesting comments..... Yes I did consider withdrawing a tax free amount to pay off the debts but from what i've read the thinking is you should have as much as possible invested in your pension so i assumed this would not be a good thing to do. 

That's why it would be critical (if you went down that path) to have the self discipline to divert the freed up income (no longer being used to pay down the debts) to refill the pension pots.

SomeMadeUpName

xylophone said:

Also if I took the value of the smaller pensions to pay off the debts is the tax free annual allowance that I can take 25% of each pension or 25% of all the pensions combined ?

I have one larger pension with £100k in it. I have two others which aren't worth much one from a job which lasted 2 years and one job which lasted 6 months and i've been auto-enrolled in my current job for 2.5yrs. I got all the statements together and it appears I would get in total less than 3k a year from the pensions combined. So what do I do with them, should I combine all the pensions into one ? 

By "the smaller pensions" you mean the ones in bold above?

What kind of pensions are these and what is their value?

Is it true that you can draw down on 100% of 'small pots' without triggering the restriction of future pension contribution. I thought I read somewhere it was, but then think I've also read the opposite.
And, if it were true, then what tax do you pay on any 'small pot' drawings?

elouise01582

You can use the small pots rule and it will not trigger the money purchase annual allowance.  You receive 25% of each small pot tax free and the remaining funds are taxed at the basic rate.

SSTJCKel

Right so i'm quickly learning that I know much less than I thought. By the way i'm reading all replies with interest but I work nights so I am awake at odd hours.... So first off none of my pension statements or online info tells me if my pensions are DB or DC so I need to find this out. But I have:-
Pension 1 - Value 100k - Started out with Winterthur but has now ended up in Aviva (useless bunch who initially denied I even had a pension with them.
Pension 2 - Value 22k - Started out as Winterthur but now with Fidelity
Pension 3 - Value 2k - with Fidelity
Pension 4 - ??? - with an employer I was tupee'd into for 18months before being made redundant. I haven't been able to track this down and the employer does not respond to letters or phone calls about it.
Pension 5 - Value £506.73 - with Nest
Also none of the above have generated statements for the last 12 months and I can't access statements for this period on line and none of them have online an estimated value at retirement or estimated pension like they used to ?
Pension 2 would cover my debts if I could take 100% cash free. Someone mention if its to pay off debt it could all be tax free. Is that the case and how do I arrange that ?
And what should I do with Pension 3 & 5 ?
I'm ashamed to say i've just realised I have no idea how to log into my pension with my current employer who I have been with for 2.5 years so I will be putting that right on Monday.
Again all the responses have helped in some way if only to raise questions I hadn't thought about so thanks all.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Pension 2 would cover my debts if I could take 100% cash free. Someone mention if its to pay off debt it could all be tax free. Is that the case and how do I arrange that ?

Where have you read that?  

Anyway, wherever it was you have misunderstood, 25% can be taken as TFLS but the rest would be taxable income when taken out of the pension.

xylophone

You reach State Pension Age in 2024.
Have you obtained a state pension forecast?
https://www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Pension 4 - ??? - with an employer I was tupee'd into for 18months before being made redundant. I haven't been able to track this down and the employer does not respond to letters or phone calls about it.

https://www.gov.uk/transfers-takeovers

Where were you originally employed?  Were you a member of the pension scheme?

If so, what information do you have concerning the pension after TUPE?

I'm ashamed to say i've just realised I have no idea how to log into my pension with my current employer who I have been with for 2.5 years so I will be putting that right on Monday.

This is pension 6? Who is the provider?

With regard to the £100,000 pension originally with Winterthur,  was this a workplace pension or one you started yourself or one which resulted from a transfer in of an occupational pension?