Pension Transfer Query - access at 55 or 57 if the target scheme is 55?

Aminatidi

I have a Royal London pension through an ex employer and an Aviva pension through my current employer.

I had some info confirmed by Royal London and Aviva which is that my Royal London pension does not have a protected age or unqualified right so I can't access that until I'm 57.

My Aviva pension does have a protected age of 55 which surprised me in a good way as that's the current workplace pension that any new salary sacrifice goes into.

There's around £65K in the Royal London one and around £17K in the Aviva one.

I assume if I transferred the Royal London one to Aviva the funds would be ring fenced somehow as it doesn't feel right that you can transfer in and suddenly benefit from being able to access it at 55?

Basically now I know I can't access the Royal London one until 57 I'm debating transferring it to Vanguard but I honestly expected the Aviva scheme to also be 57 so finding out it's 55 has thrown me a bit of a curveball.

Aminatidi

Anyone...? 

sandsy

This article from Aviva suggests you can transfer the RL pension to Aviva and take advantage of the unqualified right on the whole lot:

https://connect.avivab2b.co.uk/adviser/articles/news/platform-and-investments/Has-the-regulation-for-the-NMPA-created-a-new-critical-advice-point/

Aminatidi

Yes they confirmed this to me  So it seems I could open a SIPP at somewhere like Vanguard and if I get to 55 and think I might want to do so I can transfer the SIPP to Aviva and access it.

Sounds too good to be true.

ussdave

That's interesting.  Fidelity (also a scheme where some members have an unqualified right) were not able to confirm one way or the other when asked the same question recently.