NEST Pension being illegally witheld

MallyGirl

TrustPilot is a great place to air complaints - very few people feel inspired to post glowing reviews about anything, certainly not pension providers. @dunstonh was just commenting on personal experience.

german_keeper

Other side of the coin: we have been perfectly happy with NEST.

We couldn't really afford to pay extra until the mortgage was paid off and my wife only had about £1k in there. But we just set up a monthly DD from her account and then towards the end of each tax year I worked out the maximum we could put in and made a one off extra contribution by debit card. The 1.8% charge is a bit annoying but as we were getting the 25% tax relief and tax free on the way out we were prepared to put up with it. 

Now we are in drawdown, although there is no regular UFPLS option, I just log on towards the end of the month and it takes a couple of minutes to request a payment. Then she receives the money in her bank account within a few days and it takes her a couple of minutes to put £240 back in.

But of course our dealings with them have probably always been in the file marked simple. Hope I'm not tempting fate! 

Marcon

german_keeper said:

Other side of the coin: we have been perfectly happy with NEST.

We couldn't really afford to pay extra until the mortgage was paid off and my wife only had about £1k in there. But we just set up a monthly DD from her account and then towards the end of each tax year I worked out the maximum we could put in and made a one off extra contribution by debit card. The 1.8% charge is a bit annoying but as we were getting the 25% tax relief and tax free on the way out we were prepared to put up with it. 

The 1.8% charge is particularly poor value for older savers, because their pot gets a direct hit at the outset with far fewer years to benefit from NEST's lower ongoing charges (which aren't in truth that competitive anyway).

If you plan to put in more money, an easy way to avoid the 1.8% contribution charge is to set up a simple pension (eg a stakeholder) and put your money into that, then transfer (no exit or other charge) to NEST. There's no 1.8% charge on transfers in.

You'll get the tax relief and tax free element just the same way as if you'd paid directly to NEST.

german_keeper

Marcon said:

german_keeper said:

Other side of the coin: we have been perfectly happy with NEST.

We couldn't really afford to pay extra until the mortgage was paid off and my wife only had about £1k in there. But we just set up a monthly DD from her account and then towards the end of each tax year I worked out the maximum we could put in and made a one off extra contribution by debit card. The 1.8% charge is a bit annoying but as we were getting the 25% tax relief and tax free on the way out we were prepared to put up with it. 

The 1.8% charge is particularly poor value for older savers, because their pot gets a direct hit at the outset with far fewer years to benefit from NEST's lower ongoing charges (which aren't in truth that competitive anyway).

If you plan to put in more money, an easy way to avoid the 1.8% contribution charge is to set up a simple pension (eg a stakeholder) and put your money into that, then transfer (no exit or other charge) to NEST. There's no 1.8% charge on transfers in.

You'll get the tax relief and tax free element just the same way as if you'd paid directly to NEST.

Yes I'm aware of that. we are just contributing the £3,600 gross now so effectively paying 60 odd quid to make the £720 tax relief. She won't pay any tax till SPA so at least we are clearing about £660. Convenience and laziness probably. But yes, I really should get round to having a proper look.