Hi Paulsm
I empathise with your situation - it must all sound very legalistic. I will try to simply summarise some points which hopefully will help with your deliberations. Whilst most of what is to come may not be exactly what you would have hoped for - I think I may be able to allay one of your concerns.
1. The Revenue Rules can be viewed as primarily setting out maximum benefits and Revenue controls under pension plans generally;
2. The Trust Deed & Rules (TD&Rs) of individual plans set out the precise terms for individual plans and must not exceed the maximum benefits as set out in the Revenue Rules;
3. Under Revenue Rules, you may receive your benefits now;
4. The key terms of relevance to you are therefore the terms of the TD&Rs (and associated relevant pension documentation);
5. There is often confusion regarding what specific rule is to apply in your case. Instinctively, people tend to refer to the specific rule regarding "early retirement" in the TD&R;
6. However, the early retirement rule deals with current employees wishing to immediately transition from being an employee to becoming a pensioner;
7. The relevant rule for you is to be found in the "leaving service section" of the TD&R - and refers to the early payment of a deferred pension;
8. A typical example of the legal style wording of this would be along the lines of: "where a Member is entitled to a deferred pension, the Trustees may at their discretion pay benefits earlier than Normal Retirement with such benefits being reduced as the Trustees decide."
9. I have never seen a Rule (as per 8 above) which did not leave the early payment of a deferred pension at the trustees' discretion - and so the advices you have been getting from the trustees are completely plausible;
10. It is worth remembering that there is a different relationship between you and the employer compared with a current employee and the employer - in that the employer may decide to facilitate an active employee to retire rather than have such an employee remain as part of its headcount with possible sick pay obligations, etc., whether insured or not;
11. In other words, and getting very technical here, the employer in point 10 may be happy to fund the solvency strain caused by the immediate retirement of an active employee but not similarly happy to so do for a former employee;
12. It may sound and, in reality, be harsh - but the same motivation does not exist for the employer in your case - there may be a bit of the "when you're gone, you're gone" mind-set;
13. It summary, therefore, I suspect when you get a copy of the TD&R, it will only serve to confirm what the stated position of the Trustees, all along - i.e. you can not retire now from the plan but you can take a (reduced?) transfer to a PRB;
14. I promised you a little good news! In the same "leaving service rule", you should see a sub-rule which deals with the death of a deferred member during the period of deferment. Typically, this will be along the lines of "In the event of the death of a Deferred Member before Retirement, there shall be payable to the Member's Personal Representatives an amount equal to the actuarial value of the Deferred Pension" - which, in English, ordinarily means that the then transfer value would be payable to your estate - i.e. the deferred pension has not died in the event of your passing between now and age 65.
The fact that you have 27 years pension benefit accrued means that this is a very important decision for you. Your inclination seems to be to take your benefits as soon as possible - which I can understand, notwithstanding my caveats in earlier posts. You need to take professional advice!