Feedback and thoughts on UFPLS providers

scaashiana

Hi

I'm around 1 year away from retirement and, having reviewed the options for drawdown, believe that UFPLS is the most suitable option for me.

I'm looking at providers and a search through these forums comes up with several, including

AJ Bell
II
Vanguard
Aviva
Hargreaves Lansdown

Am I missing any other providers that I should consider?

I'm interested in hearing what peoples experiences are with these providers and whether they would recommend their provider. AJBell seems to get a lot of postive feedback here.  

I'd be interested to hear (but not limited to);

1. Overall experience with your provider
2. How straight forward are withdrawls? 
3. How long might those withdrawls take to 'land' in your bank account?
4. Can I withdraw once a month? (This isn't critical, but can be useful).
5. Anything else worth bearing in mind?

My (employment linked) pension pot is currently with L&G who I don't believe have an UFPLS offering.

Many thanks,

Shimrod

scaashiana said:

My (employment linked) pension pot is currently with L&G who I don't believe have an UFPLS offering.

Many thanks,

I can't comment on most of your questions as I am just in the process of moving my L&G pension to ii, but if you have a standard workplace pension, L&G do offer UFPLS as a drawdown option. They don't offer flexi-access drawdown - you can't part crystalise your pension fund. 

I have changed to ii for added drawdown flexibility and lower platform fees - plus a much better selection of funds to choose from. If you're happy with the fees charged by L&G and just want to use UFPLS, then you could stick with them.

squirrelpie

One of the main considerations with UFPLS is the number of steps you have to go through each time you take a payment. This varies between providers.

dunstonh

Feedback and thoughts on UFPLS providers

To be fair, most providers, even on legacy pensions, offer UFPLS.

My (employment linked) pension pot is currently with L&G who I don't believe have an UFPLS offering.

They do on some plans but not others.

Notepad_Phil

Not needed to do a UFPLS recently, but the last time I did so on ii it was very easy to do and everything could be done online with no need to do anything by post or telephone. I think from start to finish it took between 5 to 10 working days to get the money in my bank account.

Mrs Notepad uses Hargreaves Lansdown for her sipp/UFPLS and although a lot can be done online, they do insist on posting out a form that has to be completed and sent back.

Of the two I'd suggest that ii would be a lot easier to process if you wanted a UFPLS each month, but I'd suggest instead that you consider just taking maybe 3 or 4 spread evenly over the year with the last set for post March the 6th e.g. June, September, December, March to spread your tax-code over the year.

But of course you also need to consider the cost to you of the platform, which is not always straightforward to calculate so be careful with your calculations and e.g. check whether there are any caps etc which can make some of the platforms that charge based on a percentage of the assets cheaper than you might first think.