Believe I've over paid into a SIPP.

wjr4

Spendless said:

Hi, I didnt earn £60k in the previous year and never have, so my understanding is roll over doesnt apply. 

The FA was a financial adviser not an independant one which she did tell us at the time. As she gave us several ideas what to do with our money at different places  we didnt really see it as an issue at the time.

Since then she has become  or maybe as Ive become more aware, that  she is a partner (if thats the correct term??) of a financial place that has high charges and is frequently criticised for doing so. This is who my SIPP is with. 

This is a seperate issue to me than unwittingly paying too much into a SIPP because I handed over the amount the FA told me to. Apologies if Ive muddied the waters with replies by not including this info but I just saw it as 2 seperate things. 

So you’ve seen a SJP partner/sales person/financial adviser. Did they send you a suitability letter with formal advice? 

Spendless

wjr4 said:

Spendless said:

Hi, I didnt earn £60k in the previous year and never have, so my understanding is roll over doesnt apply. 

The FA was a financial adviser not an independant one which she did tell us at the time. As she gave us several ideas what to do with our money at different places  we didnt really see it as an issue at the time.

Since then she has become  or maybe as Ive become more aware, that  she is a partner (if thats the correct term??) of a financial place that has high charges and is frequently criticised for doing so. This is who my SIPP is with. 

This is a seperate issue to me than unwittingly paying too much into a SIPP because I handed over the amount the FA told me to. Apologies if Ive muddied the waters with replies by not including this info but I just saw it as 2 seperate things. 

So you’ve seen a SJP partner/sales person/financial adviser. Did they send you a suitability letter with formal advice? 

Yes this is who we saw. I dont remember unfortunately, Im swaying towards no, but cant be 100% sure. We wont have got rid of any correspondance though. Since then weve had a couple of annual reviews and have received a written letter with our discussion.

I became aware of who our FA was with when I saw her ad in a local mag with SJP in her email (husband had sent all emails previously so not something Id noticed).  Later I became aware of the high charges from this place followed by seeing the info on how much can be paid into a SIPP. 

dunstonh

Since then she has become  or maybe as Ive become more aware, that  she is a partner (if thats the correct term??) of a financial place that has high charges and is frequently criticised for doing so. This is who my SIPP is with. 

I was going to guess SJP from your description.  However, they don't have a SIPP.   Have they left you on the old SIPP or did they transfer you to their personal pension?  (the SIPP wouldnt have exit fees but their PPP would)

This is a seperate issue to me than unwittingly paying too much into a SIPP because I handed over the amount the FA told me to. Apologies if Ive muddied the waters with replies by not including this info but I just saw it as 2 seperate things. 

The agent is responsible for the advice they give.   They should check the eligibility by verifying your income with you.      On occasion, a change of circumstances can leave earlier advice invalid.  i.e. if, at the time of the contribution, you were earning enough to make the contribution, but later in the tax year you stopped work or changed to a lower-paid role, then the adviser cannot be responsible for that.    

However, if you were never eligible to pay that level in the first place and it was an advised transaction (rather than non-advised) then advice rules matter.

That said, it should be resolvable.      One of the few circumstances that allow a refund of contributions is where your UK earnings do not cover personal contributions in the tax year.   This is known as a " refund of excess contributions lump sum"
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm045000#Refundecls

Alternatively, if you leave it, HMRC will add the overpayment to your income for the year, and you will pay tax on the overpayment at your marginal rate.  

Spendless

dunstonh said:

Since then she has become  or maybe as Ive become more aware, that  she is a partner (if thats the correct term??) of a financial place that has high charges and is frequently criticised for doing so. This is who my SIPP is with. 

I was going to guess SJP from your description.  However, they don't have a SIPP.   Have they left you on the old SIPP or did they transfer you to their personal pension?  (the SIPP wouldnt have exit fees but their PPP would)

This is a seperate issue to me than unwittingly paying too much into a SIPP because I handed over the amount the FA told me to. Apologies if Ive muddied the waters with replies by not including this info but I just saw it as 2 seperate things. 

The agent is responsible for the advice they give.   They should check the eligibility by verifying your income with you.      On occasion, a change of circumstances can leave earlier advice invalid.  i.e. if, at the time of the contribution, you were earning enough to make the contribution, but later in the tax year you stopped work or changed to a lower-paid role, then the adviser cannot be responsible for that.    

However, if you were never eligible to pay that level in the first place and it was an advised transaction (rather than non-advised) then advice rules matter.

That said, it should be resolvable.      One of the few circumstances that allow a refund of contributions is where your UK earnings do not cover personal contributions in the tax year.   This is known as a " refund of excess contributions lump sum"
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/pensions-tax-manual/ptm045000#Refundecls

Well that's interesting as I was definately told it was a SIPP (Id not heard of it before). I didnt previously have one. What I did have was several different workplace pensions with varying amounts in  and 1 private pension that I took out in the 1990s that I no longer paid into all.

All these were collated together by the FA and moved into what I believed to be a SIPP along with £16k. 



I have dug out my last report that describes the account as 'retirement account' 

Spendless

Ok, Ive just managed to look thru some correspondance I have from.the FA.

A letter says on 1st March 2024 I told her my salary was £20668. This is not correct. I was not working on 1st March 2024. In that financial tax year 23/24

I worked part time - April to July/Aug
Full time from.Aug - Dec 1st (when I lost my job)
I am then out of work and not claiming anything as Im not eligible (havent paid enough NI in qualifying years and have working husband) until 3rd April 2024 when I start a full time job which is initially a temp position, it later becomes permanent with me earning over £21k in the tax year 24/25 but the deposit into the retirement fund is made in March 2024.

I am 100% certain I could not have told the FA I was earning over £20k on a meeting on 1st March because I know for definate I didnt attend an interview for the last job Ive listed until late March 2024 and then was told Id been succesful on 2nd April and started the following day. 

wjr4

Spendless said:

Ok, Ive just managed to look thru some correspondance I have from.the FA.

A letter says on 1st March 2024 I told her my salary was £20668. This is not correct. I was not working on 1st March 2024. In that financial tax year 23/24

I worked part time - April to July/Aug
Full time from.Aug - Dec 1st (when I lost my job)
I am then out of work and not claiming anything as Im not eligible (havent paid enough NI in qualifying years and have working husband) until 3rd April 2024 when I start a full time job which is initially a temp position, it later becomes permanent with me earning over £21k in the tax year 24/25 but the deposit into the retirement fund is made in March 2024.

I am 100% certain I could not have told the FA I was earning over £20k on a meeting on 1st March because I know for definate I didnt attend an interview for the last job Ive listed until late March 2024 and then was told Id been succesful on 2nd April and started the following day. 

Why did you not query this at the time with the FA? That’s a very specific salary so she would have got it from you. 

Spendless

wjr4 said:

Spendless said:

Ok, Ive just managed to look thru some correspondance I have from.the FA.

A letter says on 1st March 2024 I told her my salary was £20668. This is not correct. I was not working on 1st March 2024. In that financial tax year 23/24

I worked part time - April to July/Aug
Full time from.Aug - Dec 1st (when I lost my job)
I am then out of work and not claiming anything as Im not eligible (havent paid enough NI in qualifying years and have working husband) until 3rd April 2024 when I start a full time job which is initially a temp position, it later becomes permanent with me earning over £21k in the tax year 24/25 but the deposit into the retirement fund is made in March 2024.

I am 100% certain I could not have told the FA I was earning over £20k on a meeting on 1st March because I know for definate I didnt attend an interview for the last job Ive listed until late March 2024 and then was told Id been succesful on 2nd April and started the following day. 

Why did you not query this at the time with the FA? That’s a very specific salary so she would have got it from you. 

Because I wasnt aware it was relevant to the amount I was asked to give her to pay in to a pension fund. 

She could not have  possibly got this specific salary from me on the date mentioned on the letter  that we saw her (1st March 24) as I wasnt working at the time and hadnt been since 1st December 2023. 

wjr4

Spendless said:

wjr4 said:

Spendless said:

Ok, Ive just managed to look thru some correspondance I have from.the FA.

A letter says on 1st March 2024 I told her my salary was £20668. This is not correct. I was not working on 1st March 2024. In that financial tax year 23/24

I worked part time - April to July/Aug
Full time from.Aug - Dec 1st (when I lost my job)
I am then out of work and not claiming anything as Im not eligible (havent paid enough NI in qualifying years and have working husband) until 3rd April 2024 when I start a full time job which is initially a temp position, it later becomes permanent with me earning over £21k in the tax year 24/25 but the deposit into the retirement fund is made in March 2024.

I am 100% certain I could not have told the FA I was earning over £20k on a meeting on 1st March because I know for definate I didnt attend an interview for the last job Ive listed until late March 2024 and then was told Id been succesful on 2nd April and started the following day. 

Why did you not query this at the time with the FA? That’s a very specific salary so she would have got it from you. 

Because I wasnt aware it was relevant to the amount I was asked to give her to pay in to a pension fund. 

She could not have  possibly got this specific salary from me on the date mentioned on the letter  that we saw her (1st March 24) as I wasnt working at the time and hadnt been since 1st December 2023. 

But the letter will state that all advice is based on information you gave them at the time and if it isn’t correct, to contact them ASAP as the advice may not be correct…

DRS1

@Spendless OK so you and your FA have got your wires crossed somehow.  But a couple of people on here have pointed out how you can extract the over-contribution.  You can then contribute that money back into your SIPP this year (assuming you haven't already maxed out your tax relievable contributions this year).

You should get on with that and if you need to involve the FA in the process then I suggest you do it with as little finger pointing as possible.

I am sure a lot of people on here would suggest you extract yourself from SJP as soon as you can.  That means you should be looking at what sort of pension it is - see @dunstonh's post about PPP. and exit charges.  It may in fact turn out that you are in a SIPP with an outside provider (eg AJBell) and don't need to transfer it anywhere.   We assume not but it is worth checking. Then it comes down to do you want to fire your FA.  This episode would give you a great reason for doing so but you haven't said that as far as I can see.  And we all make mistakes.  It is how we deal with them that is important.  So if you do involve her to help sort this out see how she reacts and if you want to keep her.

Spendless

Thank you @DRS1

Its not a SIPP Ive gone thru the paperwork after dunstonh's post. Its an SJP retirement fund. Im pretty sure it was described as a SIPP by the FA because Id not come across the term before (but that's nothing I can prove anyway). 

Id not thought of being able to contribute any extraction of money back in - nothing has been paid in this financial year. Thanks for pointing that out. 

I do want to move away from SJP.  I was feeling this way as I became more aware from reading about them before I realised about the overpayment. Im aware Ill incur charges. Me and husband also both have a S&S isa with them taken out at the same time (part of the convo we had with FA about what to do with our money). I think we need to move them too but that can wait until the overpayment is dealt with. 

My combined pension pot is not huge, under £100k and from what Ive read previously not everyone will be prepared to 'deal' (for want of a better word) with an amount of under that. I think I also saw the £100k mentioned in a ML money show.  I was grateful that someone was prepared to put the effort in to moving the various pots into one. Im under 10 years away from SPA though, so it is something I wish to have sorted.