Disadvantages of a private pension

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facetious

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http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=167253

As my problem is not directly associated with the above, but is also that I cannot access my pension as I would wish.

I am coming up 66 years old next month and now retired. I have two private pensions in the UK totalling about 31k sterling.

I have been diagnosed with an incurable cancer (cancer of the bone marrow) and am currently in complete remission after drugs, chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.

Estimates are that I have up to six years before the cancer take a grip again and probable death.

I want to make use of all my pension fund before I die. Why should I leave any balance to some annuity company, especially if I die much earlier. But there does not seem to be a way of getting at it. Further more, I am entitled to a state pension.

I am single, and do not have any family to leave any surplus to.

I also had my house repossessed back in the late eighties. If I had been able to access some of the funds then, I would have been able to keep the house.

My advice to any single person is do not have a private pension as you just cannot get the money as and when you want to at retirement age. Look for something else - a good deposit account or something. IMHO. the benefits of being able to access some money when you want far outweighs the few saving you get by way of tax relief.

Any comments or advice?
 
Can I ask

  • Does the £31,000 in the UK pensions represent the sum total of all private pensions you have?
  • Are these UK pensions in Occupational Pension Schemes or Personal Pensions?
  • Are you entitled to a full-rate Irish State Pension?
  • Are you entitled to any UK State Pension?
 
Yes, total of both (all) private pensions. Contributed for a few years back in the early - mid eighties.
Both Personal pension plans.
Irish non-contributory pension.
I believe that I am not entitled to any UK state pension. I worked for about 5 years as self employed in the UK. No idea what stamps were paid. The accountant finalized the books and I paid what ever he said. No records from that far back have been retained. Currently awaiting (4 weeks, now) my national insurance number as that has been lost and forgotten!

I am advised that I can take 25% of the total (25% paid by each pension provider of their portion of the "pot") and the remainder must go into some form of annuity, which can be an enhanced annuity due to my health, but I fear I will not be able to make use of all my 31k.

Thanks for the interest, LDFerguson.
 
Unfortunately I can't add anything useful. If you transfer the funds into an Irish Personal Pension and then "retire" them in Ireland you get one additional option (take the 25% tax-free lump sum and transfer the balance to an Approved Minimum Retirement Fund), but it's of no use to your requirement.

There's one other possibility but frankly it's a bit mad. In Ireland if the sum total of all your private pension funds at retirement (after deduction of tax-free cash) is less than €20,000, you're permitted to take the €20,000 in one lump sum, which is taxable, under "triviality" rules. So if you were to transfer your funds into an Irish Personal Pension fund that lost money until it dropped to a value of €26,666 then you could avail of this. This would be a very expensive way of achieving your aim. There's the risk that the triviality rules could be changed. It would also be difficult as it's virtually as difficult to accurately predict which funds are going to go down in value as it is to predict which ones are going to go up. You could help the process by choosing a product that has really high charges.
 
Many thanks LDFurgeson.

Which goes to prove my title "Disadvantages of a private pension". Unfortunately, laws are generally written for the masses - and fail to leave a good option for certain types of individual or circumstances.
 
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