Defined Benefit Transfer

Malthusian

IJJoseph said:

Operation on one of our dogs took a large chunk out of my emergency fund which I want to replace. Would rather not dip into my ISA funds but could if I must. 

What about the other DC pensions? "I have a single DB pension (all the rest are DC)"
The lowest cost option, both in terms of money and time, is probably going to involve taking the money from one of those or the ISAs. 
Do you have a pension open that will accept the transfer? If you cannot get a pension in place that will accept a transfer against advice, then even a discounted advice process from the IFA lined up by the trustees (are you sure they are an IFA and not restricted?) is likely to be a waste of money.
If you are going to try the stakeholder route, then you can do this part at essentially zero cost before you lay out any money on getting advice on the DB scheme. 

leosayer

IJJoseph said:

Looks like there is fixed fee advice and transfer arrangement with an IFA that the trustees have put in place should I wish to use them. Fees look much lower than i've been seeing elsewhere as they are familiar with the scheme details which reduces the work involved. Will see what they have to say. Thanks to those who have offered some constructive feedback.

Please update this thread with the outcome - I'm sure many would be interested.

Dird

dunstonh said:

A fee for DB transfer is likely to be in the £5k to £10k range and pretty much going to result in advice that says it is unsuitable (the reasons you have given on this thread are not justified reasons)

Paying £5k on something like £35k is crazy; even more so if they say no  basically a pension prisoner and doesn't make much sense considering people aren't forced to pay such fees when buying a house and I'm guessing they're not forced to pay for one when looking to take early retirement even though it can cut your payments by 40%

Marcon

Dird said:

dunstonh said:

A fee for DB transfer is likely to be in the £5k to £10k range and pretty much going to result in advice that says it is unsuitable (the reasons you have given on this thread are not justified reasons)

Paying £5k on something like £35k is crazy; even more so if they say no  basically a pension prisoner and doesn't make much sense considering people aren't forced to pay such fees when buying a house and I'm guessing they're not forced to pay for one when looking to take early retirement even though it can cut your payments by 40%

Not that old chestnut yet again. The requirement is for a member to receive advice where a scheme has a transfer value of £30K+ and includes safeguarded rights. They don't have to follow that advice and having received it, can then transfer to a stakeholder scheme (some are still open to new direct business), which has to accept transfers from any UK registered pension scheme.

Financial advisers are not the gatekeepers they've been painted...

dunstonh

Paying £5k on something like £35k is crazy; even more so if they say no   

As Marcon says, an unsuitable to transfer outcome does not block a transfer.  It probably will in the future as the number of stakeholder pensions that are still available declines but as it stands, it can be transferred.

However, yes, paying a £5k fee to release £35k is likely to be crazy in all but a very small number of scenarios.