Can SJP insist I use their partner to activate a pension drawdown.

chillybum

SJP have told me that I cannot drawdown part of my pension (25% tax free) without consulting one of their SJP partners.  I'm assuming at a cost.  They said I cannot use an independent financial advisor.  Surely that's not right.  Any advice or experience of this please?  My pension pot is not huge and I'm happy to do it myself after extensive research.  They are saying it is because I took the pension out in 1998 and those were the rules at the time.

dunstonh

They said I cannot use an independent financial advisor.  Surely that's not right. 

It is correct but not necessarily the full story. 

If you want to use the SJP product to do drawdown then you have to use an SJP rep.    They don't want you seeing an IFA as an IFA can place it somewhere cheaper.

They are saying it is because I took the pension out in 1998 and those were the rules at the time.

It is probably a legacy pension version that doesn't offer drawdown and requires the purchase of a modern pension. That is very common across all provider products from that era.   So, to put it into a new SJP plan can only be done by an SJP rep.   Not an IFA and not by you.

However, if you want to do it or want an IFA to do it and accept an alternative provider will be used then you are fine to do it.

zagfles

You'd need to transfer it out, you could probably do it without even having to deal with SJP, once you've decided where to transfer it to your new provider will likely be able to do all the work to transfer it.

cfw1994

When did you last pay anything into the pot?
AIUI, SJP will try to insist on a chunky fee to move the money out elsewhere if it has been paid in the past 6 years....
So many reasons to avoid them....🧐