Has anyone any experience of the drawdown process with Vanguard?

Cottage_Economy

As the title says. 

Have just initiated the process with Vanguard to take a lump sum from DH's SIPP and have been told he has to speak to a Retirement Consultant first.

The intention has always been to use 1/5th of the SIPP each year between the ages of 60 and 64 to supplement the first part of his pension (the final salary bit) from Royal Mail until the second one kicks in (the defined contribution bit) at 65, thus allowing him to retire early. The total pot is about £22k. We've looked at the options and intend to withdraw it as a UFPLS. The lump sum will not take him over his personal allowance, so there's no tax to pay, and we want the remainder of the SIPP to stay invested in what it currently is, which is appropriate for his age and risk tolerance. 

He got back the following email:

"If you wish to start drawing down from your pension you will need to first request your retirement pack and book a telephone appointment with one of our Retirement Consultants. Our Retirement Consultants will explain the options available and talk you through the next steps. We suggest that you read the retirement pack before the appointment in case you have any questions.

Following the first discussion, you will be asked to follow the online withdrawal journey. This will generate your illustration and you will be asked to book a second call with our Retirement Consultants. Providing everything is correct after this second call, they will authorise the withdrawal. You will then be directed to complete the withdrawal request.

Please be aware, the withdrawal process could take between 10 -15 days."

Can anyone shed any light on what this consultation consists of and could it be a major obstacle to be allowed the money? My husband is not the financial one, I am, and he actually understand none of the intricacies of it. He always hands the phone over to me so I'm a little worried that this is going to be a bad experience and we won't allowed to have the money!

jim8888

It sounds like a standard thing the providers have to do. I had to do this with both Fidelity and Interactive Investor when I wanted to take lumps sums from my pension. The calls were very helpful and they're really for your protection more than anything. I wouldn't worry over them and, if anything, would look forward to them to ensure I was actually making some considered choices.

Hal17

I have just been arranging this for myself over the last couple of days with Vanguard.

All very easy and straight forward, except of course that you have to take part in two telephone conversations with them but that was no big deal.

So download the Retirement Pack and book a timed appointment that suits you. They will call you and discuss what you want to do and mine took about 15 minutes.

The second call will be to discuss the illustration that they prepare after the first call. Again this took about 10 minutes and was then advised that their back office will arrange payment and funds will be in my account in 7-10 days. The guy explained what I needed to do on-line to complete the process, all very easy so need to worry.

ChocolateWombat

Is there any charge for these calls or advice?  Thanks.

Hal17

There is no charge for the calls.

However, they are not allowed to give advice. They will answer questions you might have and when I said thanks for the advice against one of my question, the guy instantly responded that he was not giving me any advice.

Cottage_Economy

jim8888 said:

It sounds like a standard thing the providers have to do. I had to do this with both Fidelity and Interactive Investor when I wanted to take lumps sums from my pension. The calls were very helpful and they're really for your protection more than anything. I wouldn't worry over them and, if anything, would look forward to them to ensure I was actually making some considered choices.

Hal17 said:

I have just been arranging this for myself over the last couple of days with Vanguard.

All very easy and straight forward, except of course that you have to take part in two telephone conversations with them but that was no big deal.

So download the Retirement Pack and book a timed appointment that suits you. They will call you and discuss what you want to do and mine took about 15 minutes.

The second call will be to discuss the illustration that they prepare after the first call. Again this took about 10 minutes and was then advised that their back office will arrange payment and funds will be in my account in 7-10 days. The guy explained what I needed to do on-line to complete the process, all very easy so need to worry.

Thanks for the feedback. That's reassured me considerably. 

Albermarle

As said it is the same with Fidelity. 
 They want to make sure you understand what you are doing and that it might impact your retirement income at a later stage.
Also to explain the process. 
They do this for your benefit and at the same time to cover themselves , in case you come back later saying you didn't understand what you were doing and want compensation  .
They also do a soft sell for paid retirement advice , which you just can politely say no thank you. 

dunstonh

Can anyone shed any light on what this consultation consists of and could it be a major obstacle to be allowed the money?

Its required when you are not using an adviser.  It is not an obstacle.  Its just a session giving you risk warnings.   Partly to make sure you are aware of potential issues and partly to protect the backside of the company so you cannot complain to them after the event.

Cottage_Economy

Just thought I’d come back and update. Not quite the simple process for doing it as I’d hoped, though that I think was my fault, however, I thought it worth coming back to write about it as I doubt I’ll be the only one this happens to. 

To start the process with Vanguard, you have to click on the retirement pack link on the overview page, and then book an appointment with a retirement consultant. I clicked on the link, read the pack and did what it suggested in the ‘next steps’, which is booked an appt with a pension wise consultant. As everything is on Vanguard headed paper, I assumed this was the ‘correct’ pathway. 

So of course I went back to Vanguard having had the pension wise consultation, expecting to proceed with the drawdown, only to be advised that I hadn’t. It appears that once you click on the link, a small red button for ‘book’ appears as the file is downloading. Except on my iPad, the retirement pack pdf downloads and opens up in the same window and i can’t see the red book button. If I click the back button, I go back to the Vanguard overview page there was no red ‘book’ button because the page has refreshed.

 I finally twigged this morning what was going on, switched to my android phone and went through the process again. My phone is set up to download documents as a file only, not open up in same window, and I managed to see the red ‘book’ button and book a vanguard consultant appt. 

Appreciate this is probably to do with the settings on my iPad so I need to go and find one out how to switch to downloading as a file without opening immediately. 

Hope this helps someone else who, like me, is not technically savvy and may not realise this has happened

cfw1994

Good update: those technical gremlins can catch people out, nice to hear the phone appears to have sorted it for you.

Must admit I refuse to do any ‘important’ financial transaction ‘things’ anywhere but on a laptop….happily use the tablet/mobile for consuming though.
I also tend to use ‘Brave’ as my browsing in general, but find that doesn’t work with all websites well, so tend to stick with Safari or Google for important logins…

WillowCat

I didn't have to jump through any of these hoops when I commenced drawdown for my partner with HL.  It was all done online (had a few boxes to tick to be sure I understood the info).  I took one lump sum last year, then withdrew the rest of the pension in one lump sum last month.  I was very pleased about how easy it was.

Not sure if it's relevant that his pension was < £10k?  Mine is much much higher and hoping it's as easy for me when I start drawdown in the summer.