Do pension provides have any legal obligation to switch your funds to another provider,in good time?

FionnK86

Company I worked for went into liquidation in June '21, and I started process of transfer to another companies pension scheme.

The previous scheme's advisor would take about a week to reply to emails, and requested multiple forms and even sent me the wrong individuals details with their salary.

In February he final confirmed transfer process was ready (my new provider did confirm that they had no heard from them). I emailed 2 weeks later to get an update and got a bounce back from him, waited a day and got another. Then I emailed them during their office hours (hard to ring in work) and nothing for another week.

Finally got chance to call last week and was told your man had left, and another lady was handling account. I emailed her with email from phone call, and lo and behold she was out of office until 5th April...fair enough. So I emailed on 6th and now I get another bounce back that shes away until 27th April.

I'm not sure of how the breakdown is with dividends from pension fund, but surely stalling like this is an advantage for them? I know I could've called earlier but their office hours are within mine.

Henry Ford III

It's unlikely be a monetary thing, and more likely to be inefficiency or lack of resources.

If you make a formal complaint a procedure will have to be followed.

If I were you I'd check their website, call the owner and explain your position and frustration.

Jim2007

Any interaction with the liquidators of a company can take ages if you are of no interest to them, especially if it is going to cost money. Having done several liquidations in my day I can tell you it goes something like this: you walk in the door tell everyone what is happening and the employees drop tools and walk out and you can blame them, from that minute on they are not being paid and they need to find new jobs. That means whatever was on their desk remains there, whatever was on their computer at the moment they turn it of is gone and someone from the liquidators staff, with know knowledge of how they did things is left to sort it out. And there is a long list of things on the liquidators list before they get to dealing with the pension fund. So 12 months is not a long time in the life of a liquidation.

So there is a lot of stuff that the pension company can blame the liquidator for, but in this case you seem to have been unfortunate in being hit be further delays on the part of the pension fund as well.

FionnK86

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118906842#Comment_118906842

Thanks, I emailed their complaints team yesterday. I didn't get the usual 'we'll look after your case' bounce-back, so I hope it hasn't gone into an inbox waiting for a person to fill the position. Will ring Wednesday if they don't get back by then.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118907526#Comment_118907526

Everyone else who left company seems to have had theirs transferred, I think I got unlucky with one individual who left and another who isn't replying, thanks for the information based on your experience.