Exploring Self Directed Pension route

[fangs]

My situation

Recently returned emigrant
44 years of age,
I have two pensions worth about 200k each.
- Zurich (Performance fund) @ .6% AMC,
- New Ireland Funds (ifunds 3, 4 and property fund equally split) TER of god knows what.

I am now setup as a company director (single director company) and doing a health check of my pensions. I am quite happy with Zurich, it has low annual charges and has always performed well. The New Ireland fund performances have been tepid versus the blind dart throwing monkey over the period in question (2 years), I imagine the difference being the annual charges.

I'm thinking of going down the self directed pension route and constructing my own portfolio of investments, my IFA has quoted a 2% year 1 charge and 1% thereafter for the wrapper. If I transferred my New Ireland funds this would incur approx 4k straight up and 2k per year after that.

To the experts on here, are these charges inline with norms? Are there any fixed fee options available, I don't see why a % fee is appropriate when I'll be making the investment decisions.

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[martin]

I agree that fees seem high for self-directed pensions. I remember somebody on this forum mentioning that there are high regulatory reporting requirements on pension providers and that this may be a reason for the high fees. Even so, it still seems very high.

In any case, I use an execution-only PRSA from Davy Select with an AMC of 0.75%, and I've been happy with them so far. Note that 0.75% is what Davy charges -- the actual funds that you decide to invest in will charge their own fees as well, but those are quite small in the case of e.g. broad ETFs.

 

[Bedlam]

Hi

On this topic, is it possible to place a Property already owned into a Self Direct Pension or must the purchase be made by the Pension Provider?

Bedlam

 

[Conan]

Bedlam
The answer is No. All property transactions must be “arms length”, whether purchasing, selling or renting.