Partially Crystallised SIPP Growth Monitoring

anselld

Chickereeeee said:

dunstonh said:

Chickereeeee said:

Albermarle said:

Income would only be taken from the crystallised part .

I don't see how I/they can track that. There is just one portfolio of funds, and just one cash holding amount, as far as I can see. There doesn't seem to be any restriction on how much of the cash holding I can withdraw, even if, notionally, 4/7 of it is coming from the uncrystallised pot.

Some platforms are weak on the amount of info they show you.  It doesn't mean they don't have the info behind the scenes.

I am sure you are correct. However, I have a SIPP, with another provider, with a mixture of crystallised and uncrystallised holdings of the same fund, paying dividends, and I have never been told that I cannot withdraw some of the cash as it was from the uncrystallised holding...

For example you have a fund of £200,000 all invested, zero cash, 50% crystallised.
Your pot receives a 5% dividend of 10,000.  Total pot £210,000.   You are still 50% crystallised.
You draw £10,000 income. 

This will be taken from the notional crystallised "pot", even though the actual cash arose 50:50.
So what remains is £95,000 crystallised and £105,000 uncrystallised.  Ie 47.5% crystallised.

It is perhaps counterintuitive that percentage crystallised can go down, but it must since in the extreme if you withdrew all crystallised funds as income the percentage crystallised would be zero. 

Importantly percentage crystallised must not be confused with percentage LTA used which indeed can never go down.

It is much simpler to understand with separate accounts for crystallised and uncrystallised but, as someone else mentioned, you pay the price in fees.

jim8888

It seems to me that having separate accounts for crystallised and uncrystallised pots would be the simplest way to display what has happened in a SIPP? Surely thats simplicity itself for a platform to show on its website? Why don't they do it? Honestly, reading this thread makes me lose heart in the complexity that is now applied to pensions, and nobody, especially providers and government, seems to want to make it easier. And that's before you try to sort out what you've taken with HMRC. 

dunstonh

jim8888 said:

It seems to me that having separate accounts for crystallised and uncrystallised pots would be the simplest way to display what has happened in a SIPP? Surely thats simplicity itself for a platform to show on its website? Why don't they do it? Honestly, reading this thread makes me lose heart in the complexity that is now applied to pensions, and nobody, especially providers and government, seems to want to make it easier. And that's before you try to sort out what you've taken with HMRC. 

Pension legislation has often changed quickly and haphazardly.   Changes have to be made to software which can be significant and require speed.  So, sometimes software solutions have to be made quickly which may not be optimal with a view to changing them in future.

the platforms that use third-party software don't always move to the next available version straight away.  Indeed, there can be added costs to be on the very latest versions and added risks.   There can also be consequences that have knock on impacts on any front end coding that they have added themselves.    It is noticeable that since Aviva and Aegons platform software conversions, that went so wrong, the platforms have become much more cautious in changing their software.

For example, those running a recent version of a certain platform software will have their uncrystallised and crystallised funds separated as two plans.  Those running an older version show it differently.    AFAIA, only those that have recently transferred to the software provider are on the latest version.  Those that have been using the software provider for a long time are not because it needs a fair chunk of work to migrate to the latest versions.

Anyone who has a Samsung phone will know of the frustration over how long it takes them to upgrade to the next version of android.  Sometimes ending up several versions behind.   Platform software is much the same.

Albermarle

So if you want separate pots you have to use a pension provider that offers this service . In general the very low cost ones do not .

Chickereeeee

anselld said:

Chickereeeee said:

dunstonh said:

Chickereeeee said:

Albermarle said:

Income would only be taken from the crystallised part .

I don't see how I/they can track that. There is just one portfolio of funds, and just one cash holding amount, as far as I can see. There doesn't seem to be any restriction on how much of the cash holding I can withdraw, even if, notionally, 4/7 of it is coming from the uncrystallised pot.

Some platforms are weak on the amount of info they show you.  It doesn't mean they don't have the info behind the scenes.

I am sure you are correct. However, I have a SIPP, with another provider, with a mixture of crystallised and uncrystallised holdings of the same fund, paying dividends, and I have never been told that I cannot withdraw some of the cash as it was from the uncrystallised holding...

For example you have a fund of £200,000 all invested, zero cash, 50% crystallised.
Your pot receives a 5% dividend of 10,000.  Total pot £210,000.   You are still 50% crystallised.
You draw £10,000 income. 

This will be taken from the notional crystallised "pot", even though the actual cash arose 50:50.
So what remains is £95,000 crystallised and £105,000 uncrystallised.  Ie 47.5% crystallised.

It is perhaps counterintuitive that percentage crystallised can go down, but it must since in the extreme if you withdrew all crystallised funds as income the percentage crystallised would be zero. 

Importantly percentage crystallised must not be confused with percentage LTA used which indeed can never go down.

It is much simpler to understand with separate accounts for crystallised and uncrystallised but, as someone else mentioned, you pay the price in fees.

Ah, OK thanks. That makes sense.

cfw1994

jim8888 said:

It seems to me that having separate accounts for crystallised and uncrystallised pots would be the simplest way to display what has happened in a SIPP? Surely thats simplicity itself for a platform to show on its website? Why don't they do it? Honestly, reading this thread makes me lose heart in the complexity that is now applied to pensions, and nobody, especially providers and government, seems to want to make it easier. And that's before you try to sort out what you've taken with HMRC. 

Another challenge being that once you have crystallised part of your DC pot, you cannot move part of it.....so tracking it is reliant on the platform.  Discovered that when I wanted to move the drawdown portion of my pot to a simpler platform for access.....

Guess I am lucky to be with a modern Aviva one: it does show the total pot size, then adds ‘of which £xxx is crystallised’.
I know what I have crystallised, so a very simple spreadsheet can tell me the growth of that pot (ie, what I might want to have drawn out by 75 with regard to the second LTA test).

AnotherJoe

Albermarle said:

It is not just iWeb: AJ Bell are the same.

It has been mentioned before that II do the same, but somewhere on the website  you can find a figure of what % of the pot is crystallized.

I think HL & Fidelity have two clear separate pots that you can even invest differently if you want to  .

Yep, I have HL, two different pots.

I also have a partially crystallised SIPP with SL and there is one account and you can dig down to see the % that is crystallised and not and I dont think can invest them differently.