Attempt #2

Nobody has a comment or opinion. My question was too narrowly drawn, too niche, or this is standard and well supported everywhere ;->

So let me broaden it out for "already done it" experience

Drawdown of tax free cash + crystallisation of a DC pot in more than one slice over a few years with ANY of the SIPP platforms

1 Who was the platform ?
2 How was the online and paper form filling for a partial drawdown ?
3Did the tax reporting go OK ?
4 Did the website support the "partially crystallised SIPP" reasonably ?
5 Was it possible to easily manage the crystallised and uncrystallised investments on the SIPP website ?
6 Was it possible to make these investments different based on a crystallised account pot and an uncrystallised account pot ?
7 Did anything else unexpected happen ?

Thank you

I'm not in drawdown so can't really comment on any of this, but good luck.

Okay, I'll bite :-)

1 Who was the platform ?
There are two. Aviva (ex-employer personal pension) and Interactive Investor (SIPP).

2 How was the online and paper form filling for a partial drawdown ?
In both cases, fiddly but not overwhelming. It's a multi-stage process, all paper-based, along the lines of send in an initial drawdown form to get the ball rolling, receive and return a questionnaire that prompts you to think about tax, advice, and so on, receive and agree to (and return) an illustration of benefit payout, receive the 25% PCLS in bank account, and finally a lifetime allowance usage certificate. End to end, between a week and two weeks or so if you respond promptly to their paperwork.

3 Did the tax reporting go OK ?
In my case, not much tax reporting to speak of. I took the PCLS but left the taxable balance untouched. Aviva made a minor error on the lifetime allowance certificate, and immediately sent a corrected one when prompted. Interactive Investor got that right first time.

4 Did the website support the "partially crystallised SIPP" reasonably ?
Yes and no. Aviva's is fine, since it keeps the crystallised and non-crystallised elements entirely separate. Interactive Investor keeps them together in one pot, and it seems very difficult to get them to tell you the split ratio -- I asked for this several weeks ago and still do not have it from them despite several increasingly pointed reminders.

5 Was it possible to easily manage the crystallised and uncrystallised investments on the SIPP website ?
No and yes. Aviva will let me view my crystallised investments online, but to change or switch anything I have to write to them or phone them; no idea why there is this restriction, since I could happily switch funds in the uncrystallised segment. Everything remains switchable in Interactive Investor.

6 Was it possible to make these investments different based on a crystallised account pot and an uncrystallised account pot ?
Yes and no. See 4 above. Interactive Investor keeps everything in one chunk, so it's impossible to hold different investments in crystallised and uncrystallised elements.

7 Did anything else unexpected happen ?
In both cases I would have been happy to crystallise 'in specie'. That is, for the platform to simply carve off 25% of what I was crystallising as funds, intact, into a trading account alongside my SIPP. Neither could support this; the only option was cash transfer into my bank. Aviva helpfully automatically cashed in enough fund units to cover the PCLS for me, no transaction charges. For Interactive Investor, I had to create sufficient cash balance myself, incurring some trading charges (and of course an overrun buffer, so more trading charges to undo that after the PCLS was received).

On balance then, not a seamless process with either, but I suppose it's the sort of thing that most folk only do once or twice in their lives, and the process is likely heavily regulated by the government (the questionnaire part, for example) so it's probably just not worth most platforms putting a slick and efficient process in place for this rare activity.

I have 2 SIPPs, II and HL. To add to the above:

With II, once part of your pot is crystallised, you can switch funds but you can't manage crystallised and uncrystallised separately. As Ed says, they are kept together. I assume that when you decide to sell £X of a holding, it will pro-rate according to the proportion of crystallised/uncrystallised held.

With HL, I have only ever done a full crystallisation. When I did, I ended up with 2 separate accounts, a new drawdown account and the original SIPP account. Both seem to have full and independent functionality for trading.

Who was the platform ?

HL
2 How was the online and paper form filling for a partial drawdown ?

All paper forms (think it is the same for everyone....). Quite a bit of info required, but not too onerous. Unfortunately the same form has to be filled out every time you use partial drawdown.....
3Did the tax reporting go OK ?

I haven't drawn income yet so can't comment. No reason to suppose it wouldn't.
4 Did the website support the "partially crystallised SIPP" reasonably ?

Yes. No problem.
5 Was it possible to easily manage the crystallised and uncrystallised investments on the SIPP website ?

Yes. Shown as separate accounts, can be managed independently. Aggregated values shown if desired.
6 Was it possible to make these investments different based on a crystallised account pot and an uncrystallised account pot ?

Yes, see 5 above.
7 Did anything else unexpected happen ?

Probably a slightly unfair criticism given the independent account functionality between the Drawdown account and the SIPP account, but I thought that the charge cap of £200 for equity/ETF holdings would apply across the aggregated total of the two (my portfolio is largely in investment trusts). However, it doesn't. This may act as an incentive to move it all to drawdown a bit quicker than originally intended. Original intention was to do it over 5 years. I could do in one further move, and spread the TFLS as 'income' over 5 years/reinvest elsewhere. Doing that now would crystallise an LTA charge for me though, and higher than a year or so ago due to market movement. Hey ho.....

It’s interesting isn’t it, that several years after pension freedoms came into effect, most providers don’t seem to have an integrated online offering that manages drawdown effectively.

I’m going to start drawdown in about 12 months, I’m probably going to start by taking yearly UFPLS chunks, this will hopefully at least keep things simple.