Pension Transfer Planning

Martin Rees

My pensions were all over the place and I wanted them to be sorted out. I had five or six company and private pension schemes and I wasn’t sure where they were or what they were worth. At the time, I assumed I wouldn’t be able to retire for quite some time.

I met Estate Capital through my employer and asked them to look into all of my pensions for me. This was around four or five years ago and they advised me to leave them where they were.

But more recently they reviewed my situation again. Phil wrote to two of the companies I’d worked for where I’d had final salary pension schemes and found that those pensions had doubled in value.

Pension transfer

We discussed transferring the funds and converting them into a Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). That was the thing I was a bit wary about because final salary schemes guarantee to pay you a certain amount a year for life. But equally, if drop dead at 61, that would be it gone, and there’d be no money for my wife or family.

So transferring my money was a no brainer for me – as long as I didn’t buy a Ferrari with it, I wasn’t going to spend it all hopefully!

Early retirement

Then we discussed what I wanted to do with it. I could take my pension at retirement age, but I didn’t want to work until 65. I was a construction manager and I’d had enough really. We worked out that I could actually afford to retire at 59, which I did last year.

I was lucky really - I’ve not had to draw on my pension yet, I’m using my savings, but perhaps in a year or so’s time, I’ll start feeding some of that money through.

Trust in Estate Capital

There were lots of horror stories in the press about pension transfers that had happened the year before I transferred mine, where people had been badly advised and lost money. There’s lots of advice online but it’s not easy to understand. So I had to think about whether I was doing the right thing.

But what really helped was having Phil explain things to me in great detail, without the jargon, which enabled me to make an informed decision. He made everything seem straightforward.

There are cheaper places I could have gone to but having done some research I found that they charge the going rate for someone who’s going to invest your money well, who you have proper access to and who you can speak to on a regular basis.

Now that I’m retired my day looks very different! I walk the dog, go out on my bike, and look after my grandchildren twice a week. But the best thing is knowing that if anything happens to me, I won’t lose that money. It will go to my wife and then to my children and then grandchildren. I much prefer the idea of that than of it going to the government!

Other client stories

Pension Advice

The personal touch
Tony and Paula Williams

Chris has the personal touch - he’s very approachable, down-to-earth and you don’t feel intimidated, if we’ve got a question, he’s always at the end of the phone.

Read Tony and Paula’s story..

Investment Advice

Someone you can trust
Elizabeth Roberts

It’s Chris’s personal approach that makes all the difference to me, it makes such a difference having someone you can trust. When my husband died, I was very fragile, and Chris understood that.

Read Elizabeth’s story..