The Lemon Fool

I'm helping my sister (who is due to retire in 18 months time) to line up all her (four) pensions (one DB, the rest money purchase). She's worked for 35 years salaried and is in the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on which way you look at it) of being just a little over the ~£1m LTA, and will have to take action to minimise the effect. She has a mix of DB and money purchase schemes. It's a bit of a head hurter, but she has an IFA who we are very confident in (and it's so technical, that we really do need and are happy to pay for advice).

I have a simple (!) question about the paying for the advice (and spying a way to possibly reduce the size of the pot, every little helps), and think it might be called the "Pension Advice Allowance"

https://www.gov.uk/plan-retirement-income/get-financial-advice wrote:"If you’re paying into a pension scheme, you can ask your pension provider about taking out up to £500 to pay for financial advice on retirement. You can do this once a year up to 3 times without a tax charge. Not all pension schemes provide this."

https://www.gov.uk/plan-retirement-income/get-financial-advice

Has anyone ever done this?
How hard/problematic is it?
Do they just send you a cheque or does it go direct to an IFA or it is claimed on a tax return etc?
There seem to be quite a number of hoops to jump through and different qualifications/criteria.
Are there any more detailed regulations/rules/documentation about the ability to take £500/year somewhere; the best I could come up with is
https://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/options-for-cashing-in-your-pensions/how-to-get-retirement-and-pension-advice-a5ub71g6uvql
TIA

Found this link to the draft legislation and guidance re same, if it assists.

I may want to make use of this in a few years so really helpful you raised the point.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... tions-2017

This seems to be the final legislation.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/201 ... tents/made

From a skim of the guidance notes, issued with the draft legislation, it seems to be a payment direct from the scheme to the IFA.

Will an IFA really work with a £1M pot for £500?

DrBunsenHoneydew wrote:Will an IFA really work with a £1M pot for £500?

It should cover the first 20 minutes. I don't think there was any suggestion that it would cover the whole fee?

DrBunsenHoneydew wrote:Will an IFA really work with a £1M pot for £500?

If you're paying the IFA purely for advice rather than to manage the pot then I don't see what difference the pot size makes. I'm in a similar position to the OP's sister (LTA wise) and recently sought advice about it from an IFA. This 'pay as you go' advice cost me £995. (TBH, ended-up wishing I hadn't bothered, but that's another thing...)

DrBunsenHoneydew wrote:Will an IFA really work with a £1M pot for £500?

I do not know whether they are any good, or whether they are appropriate for the OP, but they charge £500 p.a. irrespective of the pot size:

https://bancroftwealth.co.uk/