SIPP’s

Catonthemoon

Thinking of opening a SIPP. Age 62, no earned income, so only very small contributions (ie £50 pm).

Are AJ Bell, Fidelity etc all pretty much of a muchness (fees, performance etc)?

Btw, I also recently opened a T212 a/c if that may be of any relevance.

Thank you, Cotm

QrizB

For a small pension, you might be better looking at a platform that charges a %age fee rather than a fixed monthly amount.

My~£30k pension is with Dodl, for example (part of AJ Bell). Last month's charge was about £4 (0.15% per year). But it's not really a SIPP; they have a small list of funds you choose from, not the whole-of-market you'd get with a true SIPP.

I also recently opened a T212 a/c if that may be of any relevance.

T212 say "no charges" if you want to give them a go!

poseidon1

With only £50 pm to invest on an ongoing basis, your best approach would be a zero fee sipp with no dealing costs on investment purchases. Any form of admin fee or dealing commissions have a disproportionate affect on very low monthly contributions.

The only Sipp I know of that meets that criteria is that provided by Investengine, although it does require an intial £100 opening amount - see details below and their costs chart comparisons with their major competitors -

https://investengine.com/sipp/

However, they only offer a broad range of etfs, which at your current level of investment knowledge may make it difficult to decide what best to invest in relative to your attitude towards risk.

As regards their quality of service, I cannot comment since I use the more expensive but much broader investment range offered by interactive investors.

Aylesbury_Duck

Performance is down to the funds you pick once you've decided on a pension provider. You can't compare the performance of AJ Bell and Fidelity, for example, unless you mean the performance of their customer service. You could select the same fund in each, and fund performance would be identical. As others have said, with smaller amounts, prioritising lower fees is the best way to ensure that more of the fund and any growth is preserved.

retiringin26

I believe the Halifax (soon to be Lloyds branded) SIPP had a percentage based fee, but also capped at £16.50 pcm.

It runs on the legacy SW/Embark platform as I understand it. I believe it offers a good range of investments. Got a decent Which? rating , for what it's worth

Qyburn

Lloyds SIPP charges 0.25% and there's a regular investment plan without trading fees.

Catonthemoon

What makes a SIPP look attractive is the tax relief. I might be able to scrape together the £2880 in order to qualify for the £720 government top up.

What I’m unsure about is would I then have to leave the total (£3600) invested for a minimum period or I could I withdraw the full amount immediately?

Thank you, Cotm

DRS1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82065957#Comment_82065957

There is no minimum holding period and you can keep the money in cash so it doesn't lose value (well not through investment return anyway)

But what you do need to watch is how long it takes the SIPP to receive the tax rebate. The SIPP provider may prefund that but not all of them do and it can be a while before it turns up. I don't think they'd be happy if you tried to take it out before they had received it.

QrizB

What I’m unsure about is would I then have to leave the total (£3600) invested for a minimum period or I could I withdraw the full amount immediately?

Dodl (who I mentioned in my first reply) take about seven weeks to credit the tax relief. I think Vanguard were similar.

poseidon1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82065957#Comment_82065957

Firstly that's a big jump from your original £50 p.m proposal, which pointed to a very low or zero cost Sipp provider.

Your new proposal of an upfront £2880 contribution to 'quickly' access the £720 HMRC tax relief, may now point to providers who do charge fees for investing, but if you have no intention to invest ( at all) and simply quickly exit your cash from the Sipp, then even expensive Sipp providers like HL are worth considering since they don't charge fees for holding cash in a Sipp.

Would be worth clarifying your objectives here.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82065963#Comment_82065963

I do not think any SIPP provider prefunds tax relief.

The pension providers that do are mainly the traditional providers like Royal London, Standard Life, Aviva etc.