Pension

radio1julie

I have a pension with Scottish equitable and the advisors that came to our company 15 months ago advised me to invest the whole of my fund (being transferred from a previous company pension) into property as it was doing so well at the time. When the property crash occurred last year in the states (leading to a knock on effect everywhere) I e-mailed my advisor in November expressing my concern. At the time he told me that the fund wasn't performing as well but was still positive, albeit giving only single figure returns. He said he would discuss it with me in January when he came round to do the annual review. In the meantime, quite a few weeks later, he suddenly contacted me, along with several other people and told us to transfer to another fund quickly. We did but too late! My fund has lost around £4,000.00. My question is this - There are certain maintenance charges taken from the fund and I want to know what these charges are for? It certainly was'nt for warning us in good time that this was about to happen. I have asked them (and our advisor) to supply me with a breakdown of what losses and what charges have come out of the fund as I want to get to the bottom of what these charges are actually for. I am still waiting. Someone has told me that they are not actually paid to be fund managers so what are the charges for. I know they are coming out as I have seen mention of them in the initial forms that I filled in when I joined the pension.

Mr. Ryder

dunstonh

There are certain maintenance charges taken from the fund and I want to know what these charges are for?

Management and profit. Even savings accounts have them. However, with savings accounts they are implicit and not explicit.

The decision to move 100% into property was a bad one but after 15 or so years of double digit average growth without loss it is easy for inexperienced investors and advisers to get carried away.

On the upside, you are likely to be down a lesser amount than had you been invested on the UK stockmarket. Plus, low risk fixed interest funds were largely down in 2007 as well. Unless you fancied asia or specialist areas, you would have seen a loss in 2007.