gunnercaz

I'm due to move to Adelaide at the end of Feb and having great difficulty getting advice about transferring my personal pension with Friends Provident to a pensions providor in Oz? My financial advisor has not returned any of my numerous phone calls, which gives me the impression he is no longer around.
I have a Protected Rights Policy and another Registered Stakeholder Scheme with Friends Provident. Both have only been setup a few years so funds are small. Friends Provident give little advice excpt that they will send out a transfer form and that whether or not they a company in Oz will receive it? They claim it can be done over the phone?? Uhh?? Anbody done this over the phone?
Anyone help with transfering a pension to Oz or maybe carry on contributing to it whilst living abroad? Any help/financial guru's out there - Help would be appreciated.

odaat

I was in a similar position 7 years ago, after migrating to Oz - made a lot of enquiry about trf. pension funds. ( Clerical Medical)

In the end I took Financial advice in UK + Oz and realised that a UK pension fund is a strong stable financial institution which has a better chance of a return than trf to a second party in Oz.

The currency rate Oz / UK was stable so I kept the fund going.

Returned to UK last year, I am thankfull now that I did not trf. the funds to Oz.

Last Qtr. returns have been impressive.

I would contact the pension company direct and complain that the agent is not providing a service - get them to advice rather than the broker.

odaat.

Alex Hall

A few points you need to consider, I'm no expert but have started to research for myself to determine my own plan for whether to transfer or not.

In the UK currently, most pensions will result in you having to buy an Annuity when you retire. The Annuity promises to pay you £x per year for the rest of your life however the Capital sum you have built up is lost.

e.g. if Your pension pot was £250,000 then when you retire you "give away" the £250,000 in order to buy an Annuity which pays £x a year for the rest of your life. This may not sound to bad except that you lose the capital amount which may be important if you have children/wife etc then it can leave them worse off if you should depart to the fluffy clouds above.

The current Oz super-annuation scheme offers more flexibility in what you can do with your funds. Especially with respect to the fact that when you retire you still keep the capital amount (i.e. £250,000).

Note: There is proposed new UK pension legislation to come in next year to change our pension schemes to be more similar to that of Australia. e.g. no forcing to buy an Annuity.

I would say it is a fairly complex area and it is best to get professional advice if you are not sure.

There is also a tax liability if you keep your pension in the UK and permanently move to Oz. So unless you think you may come back to the UK it might make sense to transfer it. Also there are tax incentives to transfering a pension into a superannuation compared to starting a new superannuation from scratch in Oz.

It is not something however where there are hard and fast rules.

It is possible to manage the pension transfer yourself to Oz, or you can elect to use a professional. I have seen good feedback re: Prism Expats on the forum.

If you are going to transfer to oz then it is currently important to undertake the transfer within 6 months of arriving due to tax issues.

I hope that the above is off some help!
:-)
alex

Alex Hall

Hi,

See my other post in this thread. The UK pension regulations are meant to be changing next year to make it so you are not forced to buy an Annuity (although full details still to be determined by the FSA).

The Australian model is much more flexible (the uk changes will make the uk pensions much more similar to the Oz ones)

Am a bit surprised that they will not let you transfer the pension abroad, not sure what the legal side of that is, could be worth checking with an Independent Advisor.

I am not a Financial Advisor myself, however I am the Solution/Technical Architect for a Financial Planning Point of Sale product for a small UK company so I know far more than I ever really want to about the Financial Planning market in the UK.

hope that helps
:-)
alex

Alan Collett

Suggest you might contact Peter Ranson, via peter - dot - ranson - at gatewayfp.com ...

Best regards.

andrew63

You really will get a lot of conflicting advice for this - even from the experts as they will advise you to do on what gives them the most commision! (or loses them existing commissions)
Anyway, I had 4 frozen pensions in England and one in Ireland along with my one in Ireland from my wife too.
We have transferred all to Australia without a bother and if you have over AUS$100k to transfer, you can set up your own super fund and dictate where and how it can be invested. Or, you can pay an expert to do that for you.
To manage the whole thing from start to end we used http://www.sherwin.com.au/contact.html
I am no expert at all but am very happy with the service I am getting (but they are slow to respond to email but very pleasant on the phone).
My contact is Brad
Good luck

Andrew

Bix

Found it difficult to get advice in the UK but easy in Aus. I guess the amount of Britexpats here has meant they made a point of getting to know the UK systems.

I had a final salary scheme in UK and will definately transfer it if I get PR.

To me the Aus Super is 10 years ahead of UK pension schemes.
As an individual I decide where the funds are invested and can change that at any time.

The Aus system offers more options and better flexibility.

Jimbo9

I really wouldn't do that. Final Salary schemes are like gold dust - you can only seem to get them in the public sector nowadays. If you transfer it over you will be changing from a guaranteed amount (a % of your best years salary in that employment) to an amount determined by how the investments perform.

If it was a money purchase scheme then transfering makes more sense IMHO

Jim

kevinl

As long as it is a public sector scheme and even then do you trust the men in red braces to not need more of your money for vintage wines.

Sod it, spend it now on your kids rather then hope to spend it on the grandkids.

(payed in £53000 over last 10 years worth <£31000 so I am biased)

parkhigh

Also the current nhs pension is now under review. They are now looking at making us work until we are 65 even 70 and we will not receive a pension on our final salary but on an average during our lifetime. We had a discussion today about this very issue and lots of my colleagues are contacting the union. Many of them are also considering looking for alternative employment. This will not help retain nurses or any other member of staff in the nhs. This just reaffirms to me why I want to leave! But thats just my opinion.
Irene

bridiej

My private pension is hardly worth having, pay less than £25 a month into it!

Can I just close the pension and get some of the money back?

Alex Hall

Afraid I don't think you can take money out of your pension until a minimum age of 50 (which is likely to rise).

alex

Jimbo9

The NHS is the 3rd biggest employer in the world (after the Red Army and the Indian Railways) - you have size on your side !

Here's what your pension's worth at the moment

http://www.nhspa.gov.uk/pension_calculator.cfm

Jim

bridiej

Oh poo!!

Oh well, worth asking anyway.

Thanks Alex