Transferring a SIPP from one provider to another

VXman

How does this work.

I have a Vanguard SIPP with money invested in a fund. I want to transfer the SIPP to T212 and I know the same fund is not avaliable in T212. There are similar funds.

Are the funds in Vanguard sold and held as cash before the transfer and then new funds purchased when the Transfer is complete?

Anyone know how long a transfer takes with these providers. Will I be out of the market all that time?

DRS1

If Vanguard have a "similar" fund which T212 does support why not just switch to that fund and do an in specie transfer?

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6663648/transferring-a-sipp-from-one-provider-to-another

If similar funds are not available, then when arranging the transfer you request for the transfer to be in cash.

Vanguard will than cash in the investments before transfer. Transfer times can vary from a few days to a few weeks, but typically about 10 days ? However you would only be out of the market for a few days at most, maybe only a couple, as cashing the investments is the latter part of the process.

One point to watch, is that many pension providers seem rather lax about informing you when the transfer has taken place ( either in or out) . So you need to monitor when the cash arrives at T212, so it is not sitting there for days waiting to be invested.

VXman

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81958551#Comment_81958551

Sorry - can you 'translate' that. I've never done a SIPP transfer before so need it in simple terms.

DRS1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81959017#Comment_81959017

Neither have I but here goes

Step 1 you set up a new SIPP with T212.

Step 2 you tell T212 you want to transfer your Vanguard SIPP to your new T212 SIPP.

Step 3 as part of that process T212 ask you if you want to transfer in cash or in specie.

In specie means the funds you have with Vanguard don't get sold they are just transferred from Vanguard to T212.

But you have identified that T212 don't support the fund you have at Vanguard. When T212 find this out they will give you a couple of choices

1 do the transfer in cash so as @Albermarle says Vanguard will sell the fund and pass the cash over to T212. As mentioned you would need to keep an eye out for the cash landing at T212 so you can reinvest it.

2 leave the offending fund behind. You might do that if you had other funds which can go over and want to keep this particular fund for whatever reason. I am assuming it would not apply to you.

3 convert and transfer. This also may not apply to you but there are posts where people are transferring from eg HL which has a special class of fund X to another platform which can't hold that class but can hold another class of fund X. In this case as part of the transfer your holding in fund X is converted from one class to the other and you get the other class of fund X on your new platform. The different classes are mainly to do with fees where you can have clean classes and super clean classes of the same fund. I don't know if this is what you have.

So I imagine a cash transfer would be the only option available out of those three.

If you are worried about being out of the market what I was suggesting was switch your investment at Vanguard to a similar fund which IS supported by T212 and then you can do the in specie transfer.

I am imagining that in the Vanguard SIPP you hold eg VWRP and at T212 they don't support VWRP but they do have eg ACWI. My suggestion was that within the Vanguard SIPP you sell VWRP and buy ACWI and then do the transfer. This would be better than doing the transfer in cash because you would only be out of the market for as long as it takes to sell VWRP and buy ACWI at Vanguard.

I have to admit that I always thought Vanguard had a more restricted investment choice than T212 - eg Vanguard may only offer Vanguard funds but T212 would offer funds which include but are not limited to Vanguard funds. So my example may not work exactly but you did say there were similar funds and hopefully those similar funds are available on both platforms.