Does anyone know anything about these?

I've got £15k in a pension fund from years ago which is currently projected to give me around £1400/pa when I retire in 10 years time

Somebody told me I can ask for this as a lump sum now & invest it as I see fit [it certainly isn't doing much where it is]

I see pensions becoming a major problem in this century, dwarfing the recent banking scandal. As the proportion of wrinklies increases they're going to require more and more resources to feed, house and care for them, and they will still wield considerable electoral power despite their dependant status, possibly preventing the introduction of euthanasia 🙁

uplink – get professional advice.

uplink – get professional advice.

yeah I know but the cost of the advice could outweigh the value in this case

Anyway a bit of Googling tells me I can't do it as my total pension pot is way above the limit & I can't just choose to liquidate one part of my total pension pot

yes you can ask your pension provided for Triviality if the total of all your pension schemes that you might have is 1% of the lifetime allowance. For the 2009/2010 tax year this is £17,500.00.

This should not be taken as advice, and you should seek professional assistance.

Is a final salary or money purchase? If the former, I would leave it, if the latter you could probably transfer it to a self managed SIPP provided by someone like Hargreaves Lansdowne, who are great. If this stuff confuses you, get advice. If your pension pot is at the limit, you can afford advice as that would be over £1 million.

what thehillsofsomerset said!

total of all pensions as said, so if youl;ve got another 3k elsewhere notr an option.

limit goes up a bit on april 6th.

you get 25% tax free, rest taxed at basic rate in reality you get taxed more and have to claim it back.

bill's in the post 🙂

Stu

Ah, misunderstood your post, what the others said.

there are some very helpful people on the motley fool website – in the discussion forum

Pretend you don't have the extra pension, then be nicely surprised by an extra hundred quid a month once you've retired 🙂