Can I be forced to take my Pension

QrizB

How much would your pension be reduced by? I'd expect 2 years early to be about a 10% reduction, but it does vary between schemes.

Can you share the numbers please?

And how would you pay for those years if you didn't take your pension?

squirrelpie

I don't understand what is the problem with simply taking the money if it's being offered to you?

FIREDreamer

BetsyRose said:

Is a private Final Salary Scheme with a company I worked with years ago. It is managed by Willis Towers Watson. It has an NRA of 62.   I was made redundant from my recent employers last year and have used the redundancy and saving to live of since then.    I was told that the must pay out the pension at 60 if I'm not employed.

If the NRA is 62 then you cannot be forced to take the pension before this age (unless you can take it unreduced at 60 which is unlikely).

Silvertabby

Different schemes may have different ways of playing this, but the LGPS (at least in my time) adopted the stance that at least  the GMP elements of pensions HAD to be paid at GMP age ( still 60 for women, 65 for men, and unlikely to change).  

But we could pay the GMP element only, leaving the excess pension deferred until NRA.  

sheramber

My GMP element is tiny compared to the loss I will incur.

can you explain what you will lose?

Hoenir

BetsyRose said:

   I was told that the must pay out the pension at 60 if I'm not employed.

By whom  ? 

FIREDreamer

sheramber said:

My GMP element is tiny compared to the loss I will incur.

can you explain what you will lose?

Probably any early retirement penalty (not really a penalty) for taking the pension early or loss of any means tested benefits due to taking the pension into payment?

Albermarle

sheramber said:

Or does it mean in employment with the same employer  since it is a final salary scheme?

I would suspect that would be the case, and getting employment elsewhere would not change anything. Only guessing though.

BetsyRose

Yes the pension is reduced if it is paid early before the NRA.

I don't understand how it's legal to have different rules for men and women, surely that's discriminatory.

QrizB

BetsyRose said:

Yes the pension is reduced if it is paid early before the NRA.

Which is normal. But it's paid for two more years.

If the reduction is 10%, it will take 20 years before you're any worse off - so, when you're 80 or so. And you won't have to spend whatever-other-money you were otherwise planning to spend when you're 60 and 61. So you might not actually be any worse off, overall.

How much is the pension going to pay at 60, vs. what ot was going to pay at 62?

BetsyRose said:

I don't understand how it's legal to have different rules for men and women, surely that's discriminatory.

It's a hangover from the days when women could claim their state pension at 60 and men had to wait to 65.