Pension to SIPP Advice

[Scooby999]

Apologies if I'm on the wrong board.

I have a Defined Contributions pension from a previous employer which I'm considering transferring to a SIPP within which I can adopt a HYP approach. I already have a HYP outside of a SIPP but would look at the pair as one joint HYP.

My query is regarding SIPP providers and their charges. Annual management and investment fees seem relatively clear on their websites but I can find very little on drawdown costs. The Selftrade website doesn't seem to show anything for this at all.

Could anyone point me to Selftrade charges and, if any exist, any comparison websites between different provider charge rates.

If anyone could point to information on this it would be greatly appreciated.


Many thanks.

[Horsey]

YouInvest's charges are listed here
https://www.youinvest.co.uk/sipp/charges-and-rates

I am a happy customer!

[Urbandreamer]

The Selftrade website doesn't seem to show anything for this at all.

Which is why I would avoid them. Don't get me wrong, I have an ISA with them and as yet no real complaints. But if they can't tell you what you should expect to pay if you were in drawdown now then I simply would not open a SIPP with them.

MoneyObserver (an excelant mag by the way) seems to do price comparison articles every year. Here is a link to the last.
http://www.moneyobserver.com/our-analys ... -portfolio

My SIPP is with YouInvest, but they won't suit everyone.

[BarrenWuffett]

I have used AJ Bell Youinvest for my SIPP and happy to recommend although they have made changes to charges recently. Hre's a recent article on diy investor which may be useful

http://diyinvestoruk.blogspot.co.uk/201 ... tform.html

also check the Monevator comparison page

http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapes ... e-brokers/

[toofast2live]

I think most of the providers just have an annual fee and don't charge anything for drawdown payments - i'm with HL, BTW.

[Raptor]

Not the correct board for this. Not sure whether Brokers and Share Dealing is either, maybe Investing for retirement?

Need to think about this, so bear with me.

Meanwhile:-

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/cheap-sipps

Might help.

Went through this a couple of years back and tight between AJ Bell and Hargreave. Went for Hargreaves as their support was exceptional and have been very happy with the costs, but then again I am only interested in shares and IT's.

Raptor.

[Arborbridge]

The advice I would give is to pay attention to the exit, drawdown and end game charges. These are as, or sometimes more, important than the trading and running costs. It's easy to overlook the importance of these charges when they may be many years away - but one is hopefully also a long time in retirement! And you may, as some point, wish to transfer out if the provider changes their rules or charges, so son't overlook that cost simply because you don't intend, at present, to move on.

Moderator Message:
Moving from High Yield - HYP Practical to Pensions - Practical Problems. Raptor.

[Scooby999]

Thanks everyone for your responses,

Thanks for heads up regarding exit and drawdown costs being more important, potentially, than the trading costs. This was something that I had picked up as £150 or thereabouts could be quite a significant percentage of annual income.

I'll have a good read through the links, thanks all.

[genou]

Could anyone point me to Selftrade charges and, if any exist, any comparison websites between different provider charge rates.

ST SIPP charges seem to be in this document - https://selftrade.co.uk/sites/selftrade ... ment_1.pdf

[JohnnyCyclops]

For platform costs comparisons I've found The Lang Cat site and its regular reports to be useful. You'll probably need to sign up for the reports via email.

http://www.langcatfinancial.co.uk/

Under publications look for "Come and Have a Go" [i.e. at self-managed investments]. Covers both ISAs and SIPPs. Useful bandings by holding values, as some pricing models work better for smaller portfolios, and others for larger ones.

[bucklb]

Hi

I don't think my question justifies a whole new topic; apologies in advance if this looks like a thread hi-jack though.

I am hoping to get out of the clutches of Old Mutual, where I have a small (funds based) Collective Retirment Account that I will be charged 4.5% initial fees to add any further money to. They seem quite unhelpful if you don't have an IFA. I'm in the market for a SIPP, by the end of this tax year.

I plan to start the SIPP by transferring my OM pension and adding in a lump sum I have, thanks to a "Voluntary" Redundancy package. The initial sum will be c£40k. Thereafter I'm planning on adding £1k gross per month (fortunately I got a new job promptly, with a defined benefits pension no less). I aim to use a cheap monthly purchase approach to buy in to a handful of ETFs (and definitely NOT funds) or possibly low cost ITs. I'm expecting to pay in to the SIPP for 10 years, when I'll be 62.

The likely candidates seem to be Selftrade (where I already have an ISA) or YouInvest (which seems marginally more expensive, but at least not all my eggs will be in one basket). I'm hoping someone on here has had experience/dealings with both and could detail the pros/cons of each please. If there are better candidates that I'm not currently considering then I'd be delighted to hear of them too.

One thing I've yet to get an answer on is whether I must have (and pay for) a dealing account with youInvest before I can open a SIPP with them. Can anyone please confirm?

Cheers
Bob

[Alaric]

One thing I've yet to get an answer on is whether I must have (and pay for) a dealing account with youInvest before I can open a SIPP with them.

ISA accounts and dealing accounts are frequently linked so if you open an ISA, you get a dealing account as well. I think that's rather less likely with a SIPP.

It's usually the SIPP Account that's the expensive one.

[swill453]

You definitely don't need a dealing account with Youinvest. I don't have one, despite having a SIPP and an ISA with them.

Though I don't think it would cost any more if I did have one.

Scott.

[JohnnyCyclops]

The likely candidates seem to be Selftrade (where I already have an ISA) or YouInvest (which seems marginally more expensive, but at least not all my eggs will be in one basket). I'm hoping someone on here has had experience/dealings with both and could detail the pros/cons of each please. If there are better candidates that I'm not currently considering then I'd be delighted to hear of them too.

Bob

You've said the amount you'll invest, but I couldn't see what you'll invest in. This sometimes brings added charges, as does frequency of trading (if any). I use Youinvest for around £20k of previously dormant DC pension pots, moved there 4 or 5 years ago. It's been used a bit for 'experiments', which has been costly in fees, but probably saved me a lot more had I decided to 'fiddle' with a larger sum.

It's mostly been in stocks and ETFs, but I did buy a small piece (£1k) of an OEIC fund, that I'd recommended my other half to use for her company pension investments, so I could monitor it myself and have some vested interest. That suddenly triggered a Youinvest £12.50 quarterly custodian charge (I think there may or may not be a partial rebate once a year).

There's a once a month cheap trading day - BUT (from memory) it's only cheap to BUY on that date. Selling, on any day, is at the full £9.95 per trade. So if you plan to be a 'trader' please bear costs in mind.

Finally, the bit I didn't look at fully, and still haven't but now need to do so, are the costs at the end, when you want to drawdown the capital/pension. I understand these might vary considerably. My experience of Youinvest though is they started with SIPPs and seem pretty reasonable by way of operations and fees.

My point being, some costs will vary by holdings and/or trading type. Worth a think.

JC

[bucklb]

Thanks for the responses.

To clarify on a couple of points -
I don't expect to be a "trader" in any sense of the word. I'll be wanting to get money automatically invested on a monthly basis (I certainly don't want to be sitting dithering about precisely when to invest).
I'm looking at something like a couple of Vanguard tracking ETFs and/or a couple of low cost ITs and definitely NOT funds. My main driver is to keep costs low as there's a small chance I can control costs but bugger all that I can influence returns
I don't expect to be selling until it's time to take some money (i.e. at retirement), though I suppose the received wisdom is that I should be moving from equities in to "safer' options as I get older, so that may engender some sales. In my case I should have my basic "living costs" covered by defined benefits schemes, so to some extent having a SIPP is basically just gravy so I don't need to be too worried about it

It does feel like YouInvest is the way to go. Ta

[Shelford]

Hi Bucklb

Firstly: well done on taking the initiative to leave OM. I did exactly the same about 12 years ago, reinvested the money in a SIPP and never looked back. The charges were egregious and as for the spiv who sold me the 'low cost endowment pension', may he rot in hell!

I don't know about Selfinvest versus the others, but I use Hargreaves. Normally I wouldn't recommend going to them, but you're happy with ETFs, which they charge at same rate as shares, up to a cap of £200 @ .45% of value of shares. If you intend to expand into OEICS, I'd use another platform.

[bucklb]

I plan to open a SIPP with YouInvest that will qualify for a £75 recommend a friend bonus, if anyone fancies some free money. I'm not sure of the exact process, but it does seem that I will need to know your name and address (to include in an email to them). Anyone tempted?


"Recommend your friend to us

You can recommend as many people as you like. As long as they are new to AJ Bell Youinvest and they establish a SIPP or ISA account with a minimum value of £10,000, we’ll send you £75 to say ‘thanks’ for making the recommendation.
How does it work?

Once the person you recommended us to has opened their SIPP or ISA, just ask them to send an email with your name and address to recommendafriend@youinvest.co.uk. Once we’ve checked it, we’ll pay £75 direct to your bank account within 90 days of the new account being funded, it’s as simple as that!"