DB Transfer

Prism

ZingPowZing said:

xylophone said:

However is it possible to open up a new Aviva stakeholder pension? 

Yes, through an adviser.
https://www.aviva.co.uk/adviser/documents/view/sp01001c.pdf

But advisers - generally - won't facilitate a DB pension transfer following a negative recommendation. Because it is safer not to.
Do you mean the insistent client should hire another financial adviser at this point? 

I doubt you will find any advisor willing to open up an Aviva stakeholder to do a transfer that they do not advise doing.

dunstonh

but 
Prudential and Aviva said they had no way to know whether an adviser had made a positive or negative recommendation.

Aviva, on their platform side, will only take advised transactions.  Not non-advised.  The adviser has to declare that they have given advice.     On the old Life & pensions side, they didn't ask if it was advised or non-advised but pretty much everything goes on their platform for new business nowadays.

[Deleted User]

The first principle of the Pension Freedoms Acts is that the client should have the final determination.

If a negative recommendation from a financial adviser imposed on them means that insistent clients cannot then transfer their DB pensions, then the system has broken down completely. 

kuratowski

"Pension Freedoms Act" was a political slogan.  Parliament decided to translate it into legislation in a particular way, which does not grant complete freedom to all.  (E.g. civil servants - no right to transfer.)

[Deleted User]

kuratowski said:

"Pension Freedoms Act" was a political slogan.  Parliament decided to translate it into legislation in a particular way, which does not grant complete freedom to all.  (E.g. civil servants - no right to transfer.)

But all those who have to buy advice from a financial adviser do have a right to transfer.

kuratowski

And yet, the legislation did not establish a scheme into which they must be accepted.  So the reality does not live up to the slogan.  Quelle surprise.

ETA: As you already know, the rules requiring advice for DB transfers were debated extensively before enactment.  This situation is not some unintended consequence, as you like to make out, it is the situation that Parliament expressly wished for.

[Deleted User]

kuratowski said:

  So the reality does not live up to the slogan.  

You don't have to tell that to the unfortunates of the process trapped between financial services greed and financial services fear.
So the reality now is that the client has to pay through the nose for advice he doesn't want and probably won't be able to use. To add insult, the advice itself will likely reflect the interests of the adviser rather than the client, so the bigger error could be in taking a negative recommendation at face value:- that could cost the client many hundreds of thousands of pounds over time.

Prism

ZingPowZing said:

kuratowski said:

  So the reality does not live up to the slogan.  

You don't have to tell that to the unfortunates of the process trapped between financial services greed and financial services fear.
So the reality now is that the client has to pay through the nose for advice he doesn't want and probably won't be able to use. To add insult, the advice itself will likely reflect the interests of the adviser rather than the client, so the bigger error could be in taking a negative recommendation at face value:- that could cost the client many hundreds of thousands of pounds over time.

Or save them hundreds of thousands of pounds depending on what the stock markets do.

Marcon

MX5huggy said:

Why not take the pension now and give your sons the monthly amount received? (There are probably consequences regarding your ability to make further pension contributions to other pensions doing this). 

No - that's if you take taxable cash from a defined contribution pension which you have 'flexibly accessed'.

 kazzykir said:

 I have a financial background after working in a bank for 15yrs, so totally understand how this all works but I cant get anyone to help me transfer.   I would be willing to even take out an indemnity but when I ring companies up, as soon as I say a 'final salary' they get cold feet.  
Any ideas?

So what if the advice is not to transfer? The DB scheme won't want to know what the advice is - just proof that you've received it.  You don't need a positive recommendation to transfer to a stakeholder pension (which must accept transfers in from any UK registered pension scheme); you can then transfer on to a SIPP if you wish, which will be a DC to DC transfer. 

Have you checked that the firms you are ringing have the necessary FCA permissions to advise on DB transfers?

Prism said:

ZingPowZing said:

xylophone said:

However is it possible to open up a new Aviva stakeholder pension? 

Yes, through an adviser.
https://www.aviva.co.uk/adviser/documents/view/sp01001c.pdf

But advisers - generally - won't facilitate a DB pension transfer following a negative recommendation. Because it is safer not to.
Do you mean the insistent client should hire another financial adviser at this point? 

I doubt you will find any advisor willing to open up an Aviva stakeholder to do a transfer that they do not advise doing.

Use one you can open yourself e.g. https://www.standardlife.co.uk/pensions/personal-pension/stakeholder

[Deleted User]

Prism said:

ZingPowZing said:

kuratowski said:

  So the reality does not live up to the slogan.  

You don't have to tell that to the unfortunates of the process trapped between financial services greed and financial services fear.
So the reality now is that the client has to pay through the nose for advice he doesn't want and probably won't be able to use. To add insult, the advice itself will likely reflect the interests of the adviser rather than the client, so the bigger error could be in taking a negative recommendation at face value:- that could cost the client many hundreds of thousands of pounds over time.

Or save them hundreds of thousands of pounds depending on what the stock markets do.

I think the concept that quite a few posters are missing is self-determination. 
"Pension Freedom" was not just a slogan but a central tenet of Conservative Party ideology, the freedom/responsibility of the individual to decide for themselves. Clearly, a large part of the financial services industry would gladly go back to the days when their only obligation to the members of their plans was a yearly statement, six-months in arrears. But if those pension plans had not been generating such lousy projected returns in the DC market, Govt may not have had to shake them out of their complacency.