Drawdown pension

Jkn58

Can anyone recommend a Drawdown Pension provider where it’s easy to make occasional withdrawals of tax free AND taxable money? I do not want to take all tax free money up front as most seem to assume. Had a complete nightmare doing this with Standard Life so want to transfer my pension elsewhere. 

Malchester

I have transferred my DC pension to PensionBee and am doing what you want to do. I do it on a monthly basis by answering a few questions online, inputting how much I want to withdraw and then 6 or 7 days later the funds are in my bank account. The only issue is that the available plans with PensionBee are rather limited but that is not a problem for me. Look on their website pensionbee.com. As part of the transfer you will be assigned your personal 'Beekeeper' who you will deal wih about any issues you have.

Albermarle

Many pensions let you take the tax free cash in tranches ( without taking any taxable income )
Many pensions with let you take a UFPLS payment - 25% tax free 75% taxable 
Seems like only a few allow regular UFPLS payments , without going through admin/compliance procedures for each payment.
Modern pensions offer flexi access drawdown , where you can take different amounts of tax free cash and regular taxable income .
So one off lump sums  or regular payments should be no issue but random ad hoc withdrawals seem to be an issue with many ( not all ) providers. It seems the providers who work via advisors are more flexible as I think are a couple of the simpler newer smaller providers , like Pension Bee .
The problem is they all tend to do things a bit differently .

dunstonh

I do not want to take all tax free money up front as most seem to assume. Had a complete nightmare doing this with Standard Life so want to transfer my pension elsewhere. 

Legacy plans tend to be more difficult than modern plans.  For example, Standard Life life plans that are now with Phoenix are the legacy plans and many of those dont offer drawdown functionality and where they do, it's a very manual process.  Whereas Standard Life plans that are with Abrdn offer full functionality with all options using modern software.

Moving to a modern plan that caters for the DIY market is what you should be looking for.

green_man

The problem is that there are various regulations and compliances in place to help prevent people misusing their pensions.  This seems to have resulted in providers imposing manual applications, risk analysis, illustrations etc every time a UFPLS is withdrawn.

Whilst I understand the reasoning behind this it means the process is extremely clunky. Due to the manual nature of the applications it also means that significant charges are usually incurred as well (Though not by all providers). My compromise is that I do 1 UFPLS per tax year and that works quite well. (I use Halifax sharedealing admin Via AJ Bell).  

Albermarle

Jkn58 said:

Can anyone recommend a Drawdown Pension provider where it’s easy to make occasional withdrawals of tax free AND taxable money? I do not want to take all tax free money up front as most seem to assume. Had a complete nightmare doing this with Standard Life so want to transfer my pension elsewhere. 

SL do allow you to take the 25% tax free in tranches . Although you may have to transfer an old pension into their current one .
When you reach 55 (subject to change) you can usually take 25% of your total pension savings tax-free. It’s important to think about whether this is right for you or if you’d prefer to keep your money invested. Keeping it invested gives your money the potential to grow further.
You can take this 25% as one lump sum, a number of smaller lump sums or as regular payments. Withdrawals from the rest of your pension plan will be subject to tax.

Or do you mean you started doing this with SL but hit admin problems of some kind ?

topcat105

Malchester said:

I have transferred my DC pension to PensionBee and am doing what you want to do. I do it on a monthly basis by answering a few questions online, inputting how much I want to withdraw and then 6 or 7 days later the funds are in my bank account. The only issue is that the available plans with PensionBee are rather limited but that is not a problem for me. Look on their website pensionbee.com. As part of the transfer you will be assigned your personal 'Beekeeper' who you will deal wih about any issues you have.

This is what I want to do as I am now 55.
I transferred my old pensions to PensionBee but I can't see anything in my app about making a withdrawal ?

xylophone

https://www.pensionbee.com/pensions-explained/pension-withdrawal/how-to-withdraw-money-from-a-pension-fund#:~:text=It's possible to access a,rate for any subsequent withdrawals.

Have you made contact with PensionBee explaining that you wish to access the pension?

Malchester

topcat105 said:

Malchester said:

I have transferred my DC pension to PensionBee and am doing what you want to do. I do it on a monthly basis by answering a few questions online, inputting how much I want to withdraw and then 6 or 7 days later the funds are in my bank account. The only issue is that the available plans with PensionBee are rather limited but that is not a problem for me. Look on their website pensionbee.com. As part of the transfer you will be assigned your personal 'Beekeeper' who you will deal wih about any issues you have.

This is what I want to do as I am now 55.
I transferred my old pensions to PensionBee but I can't see anything in my app about making a withdrawal ?

I'm not sure you can arrange withdrawals through the app (I can't) but you can definitely do it through the website as that is how I do it each month. On the website there is a heading for withdrawals 

topcat105

Malchester said:

topcat105 said:

Malchester said:

I have transferred my DC pension to PensionBee and am doing what you want to do. I do it on a monthly basis by answering a few questions online, inputting how much I want to withdraw and then 6 or 7 days later the funds are in my bank account. The only issue is that the available plans with PensionBee are rather limited but that is not a problem for me. Look on their website pensionbee.com. As part of the transfer you will be assigned your personal 'Beekeeper' who you will deal wih about any issues you have.

This is what I want to do as I am now 55.
I transferred my old pensions to PensionBee but I can't see anything in my app about making a withdrawal ?

I'm not sure you can arrange withdrawals through the app (I can't) but you can definitely do it through the website as that is how I do it each month. On the website there is a heading for withdrawals 

Brilliant ! Thank you.
Do I need to provide all 3 documents (passport, driving licence and identity card) that they are asking for ?
I don't have an identity card, my passport is out of date and I don't have a photo driving licence, only a paper one.

Albermarle

 I don't have a photo driving licence, only a paper one.

You are certainly a dying breed . About ten years ago I produced mine at a department store to get a store card ( just for a one off discount) and the staff behind the counter had never seen one before , even then 

I don't have an identity card,

We do not have these in UK