My UK pension only gives me 2 options, take everything or move to an annuity. In order to take out an annuity I need to be resident and have a UK postcode. I don't want to take everything as I will be taxed at the higher tax rate. I have the option to move to a drawdown pension, but I need a UK based financial adviser to move to the new product. UK advisers will not deal with me because I am not a UK resident. I have met with Titan Wealth , W1invest and cross-border investing. I do not feel comfortable with any of these 3 companies and not really sure how I am going to be able to get access to my UK pension without taking it 100% as a lump sum.

Just curious if others have run into the same issues.

Hi
Don’t know what country you’re in but this issue has been extensively discussed on another forum called Survive France.
https://www.survivefrance.com/t/uk-p...-the-pru/53150
Good luck!

Thanks , interesting post, but no real answers unfortunately except moving back to the UK and becoming resident

Here’s another thread on the same topic. I see a couple of people mention getting round the problem by using a close relative’s address.
Is this an option for you?
https://www.survivefrance.com/t/basi...living/51281/6

Looking at the conversation more closely, there’s a suggestion that giving a UK address is not enough. Hmmm. I think you might indeed be stuck with the 2 options you mention.

It must be company dependent or the rules have changed because I started drawing both my UK private pensions while still living in the USA. These were final salary pensions with the option of a partial lump sum, which I declined.

You realize he's talking about a "draw down pension" (pulling funds from the pension account on demand/ as needed) not drawing a pension.

With my provider I chose the flexible draw down option, I just take some funds when necessary.
The annuity offered to me wasn't what I wanted and the company involved seemingly didn't like a non UK address.

I think the problem is if you’re with a provider that won’t offer you this, because you live abroad it’s very difficult to transfer to a different provider.
The forum thread I referenced was all about people living in France. Maybe transfers between providers are possible for people living in certain other countries?

I agree.

I think that to switch to an annuity means that the company your pensions savings are with must buy that annuity from another company and it is next to impossible to open an account with a financial company if you are not UK resident.

I had a similar situation moving from the USA but I knew ahead of time that my employer 401k provider would at best be extremely difficult to deal with as an overseas customer so I decided to transfer the funds to an IRA with a brokerage that does support overseas customers. If I was not US resident then there would have been no way for me to open a new US brokerage account to receive the funds. As a UK resident now I guess any option I had of buying an annuity in the US is gone for the same reason.

It reads to me that you have 3 options.
1 Take everything
2 Buy an annuity
3 Move to a drawdown pension

I think that you are making the right move in trying option 3 and should persevere as the tax hit on option 1 might be large.

I moved my pension to a company that offers flexible drawdown, no matter where in the world you live. Only issue is they only pay to a UK bank account

Yeah, it was the same with the US equivalent when I moved my US pension funds into a US brokerage. However, I have since opened a Wise USD account with US style routing and bank account and the brokerage pays into that account. It then takes less than a minute to transfer the funds into my UK bank account.

You may be able to do similar with a Wise GBP account with UK sort code and account number, which is what my daughter uses. The nice thing about the Wise accounts is that you don’t need to have an address in the country where you set up these currency based accounts.

I have looked at that, but they say:


Wise doesn't meet this criteria, fortunately I do still have a UK bank account. I noticed that Revolut NewCo UK Ltd is on the list as is Monzo, not sure if that would work. List of regulated UK banks below.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prud...stment%20firms.

Good to know, thanks for the update.

Move it to a SIPP and then you can manage the drawdown yourself ad hoc?