I have a small stand alone pension taken out years ago as an addition to my work pension. I then had to make this paid up when i joined another company because of some rules which meant I couldn’t pay into both. It was a long time ago, i don’t remember, the company assigned advisor sorted it all.

Unfortunately the management fee for the pension is more than the investment income so every year it gets a bit smaller, and by the time I come to take it there’ll be none left. So, i want to take it as a transfer value into my current work scheme, but I can’t seem to do it.

My company provider (the recipient scheme) says that they need it to be done on the instruction of an IFA, because they can’t provide investment advice. The standalone scheme (the donor) say that they need the recipient to request the transfer (through Aurigo or something), they can’t just send it willy nilly.

Who’s right? Why can’t I issue the instruction, it’s my money? Do i really have to pay an IFA just to fill out a piece of paper or send an email or something?

If it was a serious sum, yes i’d pay an IFA. But it’s £1200, and getting smaller each month. All i want to do is lump it in with my current scheme so I only pay one management fee on the combined sum!

Help!!

[apologies if having a pension makes me Tory scum]

I did that with one of my pensions earlier this year. We have an IFA looks after our company pension though so I just called them, they sent me the forms and it was sorted in a couple of months. The form was pretty simple though so pretty sure you could do it yourself.

Having googled Aurigo it looks like that must be the system companies use to administer pension savings.

Can’t you just close it and put it into a low cost SIPP? Tell the SIPP you want to transfer and they’ll sort out.

You can do it without an IFA – I have, repeatedly and never had any problems. You just need to state words to the effect that it’s execution only, you accept the consequences of not having taken advice, etc. Your company scheme (recipient) should take care of it all once you’ve provided them with details of the donor scheme. It’s by no means an unusual request (and you’re doing the right thing, BTW)

No need to use an IFA, I moved an old company pension into a SIPP myself last year. Just filled in a form and posted it off to the SIPP company and they transferred the money from my old pension for me.