Self Administered Pension Scheme...

HellFireClub

Has anyone ever tried setting one of these up??? I'm starting up a new business and have a substantial pension from a previous employment. I'm aware of the rules regarding what I can and cannot invest my pension in but I'm determined to take control of my pension from the company that are currently managing it, after all, it's my property and I want to have full control insofar as possible, as to where it is invested from now on.

One of the rules of the scheme is that I will need to find an "approved trustee" and I'm having trouble finding one. Any advice or info is much appreciated.

eagle_i

HFC, self administered is not the only option open to you. In my experience you need to be making significant contributions to justify the setup, annual pensioner trusteeship, annual fund management and annual auditing costs. My advice is get independent financial advice and look at all charges before going down the line of the Self Administered route. You really need to think about why you want to go the self administered route, with the advent of the Self Directed contracts the self administered options (such as trading in shares, purchasing property etc..) are open to you without the headache of Pensioner Trustee and Auditing fees.

If you want to take control of your fund from your previous employer’s pension scheme you can simply do that by transferring the fund to a Personal Retirement Bond (aka Buy Out Bond). While you cannot make further contributions to the PRB (BOB), you have full control on the investment of the funds (within the suite of funds of the PRB provider) without having to go through the scheme trustees. As such you can park the money in the PRB until such time as you are in a position to set up a Pension Plan, be it a Self Administered, Self Directed etc.. The funds in the PRB can be transferred to the new plan when ready. Contact the administrators of your previous employer’s pension scheme request a Leaving Service Options Statement, this will set out the options and the transfer value available to you. Usually the scheme consultant will have an arrangement with a PRB provider to accept funds into a PRB without any cost (ie. 100% allocation), but you will need to check with the scheme consultant regarding these arrangements – normally you could have a charge from 0% to 5% depending on the size of the fund. Of course you have an open market option and you can request the trustees to purchase the PRB with another provider.

colliep

Hi HFC,

Eagle_i is spot on with his advice. I specialise in Pensions and I have a large amount of clients who have gone down the Self Administered route with some very disastrous results. The majority of these funds are sitting in cash accruing very little growth but are being charged hefty fees. I would seriously consider transferring into a PRB (retirement bond) until you decide what your next move is. There are also plenty of options available to self direct your pension fund through some of the main pension providers (their fees have dropped hugely over the past 2 years) without the hassle. If you want to talk more about this please let me know.

HellFireClub

Here's the long and the short of it folks and thanks for the posts...

I know the automatic answer to this is, "no you cannot do that", but I need to get my hands on my pension fund. I'm starting up a business and the only chance I have of capitalising this start up is using this pension fund to do it.

I don't care how creative I need to be to get this done, legally or otherwise, I'm open to transferring the pension overseas to another jurisdiction that has more lenient pension access rules with regard to your pension if necessary, it's a case of doing whatever I need to do to get this done, I know the automatic answer is "this cannot be done", but when I see the kind of financial chicanery that has gone on in this country to date I don't see why I should be prevented from investing what is my own money, (I'm currently unemployed at the moment I might add), into my own business. All a pension fund manager will do will invest it in bonds or shares, and as an adult I'm fully aware of the potential consequences both good and bad that might arise if I can get my own way on this...

I'm also open to a very generous commission on this project if anyone can see a method of extracting money from an Irish pension fund.

frido

Hi HFC, I'm not sure why you're being advised to put your money in a PRB. I did that with the understanding that I could move it later. In fact the document that I received had a special provision on it saying "You have the option to transfer your bond to another pension plan at a later date".
However, once I was all signed up I received a documentd saying that the current legislation does not allow you to transfer your PRB into a PRSA!
Also, what my current pension provider considers a wide range of investment options is a handful of mutual funds, and you are charged 5% every time you move funds - What a joke.
If you're still trying HFC, I found Bespoke Investments had a good setup with a minimal charge, and a proper trading platform through another company. I was going to setup a SIPP with them, but of course, once you've a PRB there's nothing you can do.
F.