Originally Posted by Glasgow Girl

Although it is usually the case that you should stick with a final salary pension, a transfer value of 53x the annual amount does change that advice, and you will likely be significantly better off transferring out. With that said and assuming you live in the USA now and for the foreseeable future then probably your only realistic option is to transfer to a UK based SIPP. Assuming the transfer value is more than 30,000 GBP you are required to take documented financial advice from a certified UK IFA. That alone will run about 2,000 GBP regardless of the size of your transfer value, more if it is a very large pot. The cost of the advice is high but is largely related to the insurance they have to pay to issue that advice not the time required to do so. The output will be a report that will clearly indicate the pros and cons of transferring. Then assuming you want to go ahead, you have to pay commission to the IFA on the transfer itself, probably in the 3% range. There is no getting around that. You must use a UK certified IFA and almost all of them will have nothing to do with anyone who lives in the USA, the reason being that they have to carry insurance to be an approved advisor and no insurer will let them deal with anyone based in the USA because of the risk of being sued in the US courts for giving bad advice. Therefore you need a specialized service. There are quite a few scam artists out there that will “manage” this on your behalf, and the few that are legitimate are not cheap as stated previously.

Transferring to a SIPP comes with pros and cons that you will have to research for yourself. But in short you can either manage the investments yourself or let the IFA manage them for you for a fee of about 1% a year (on top of the fund managers fees). You will also have to decide for yourself whether you want to declare it as a trust on your tax return. Some people are adamant that you have to do this but just as many state that you do not and you can just declare on your FBAR and tax return as a normal foreign investment but either way you have to declare it and any income taken or you will get into real trouble. Both are doable you just need to put some time aside to learn how to do it (or pay for yet more expensive advice). With a SIPP you can drawdown the money as you want to and there may be significant tax advantages to the timing of your withdrawals versus the regular payment that the final salary scheme requires.

I was in the same position as you with an excellent transfer value that made the decision a no brainer. I am currently in the process of transferring a final salary scheme to a SIPP. It should be completed in about 5 or 6 weeks. I researched the heck out of the advisors and followed up references etc. The cash transfers from the final salary scheme directly to a UK authorized and regulated SIPP so the advisor never gets to handle the money itself which is an excellent safeguard. If all goes well I will be happy to PM you and share the details of the advisors I used but I do not want to do so until everything has been completed successfully.

Originally Posted by sjbarker1

If you can share the details with me that would be excellent! I am actively researching the process. The trick is certainly trying to find a UK authorized and regulated SIPP, when I am a US Resident!