Pension advice
Discussion
So I don't have a pension.
When I started work, my wage was enough to cover off living expenses and a bit of enjoyment. Through a number of financial set backs (helping people out and having supposed friends basically steal from me), I never got one. Instead I did manage to save the cash for a house deposit and bought 18 months ago.
As I am PAYE now with a company and they have previously provided pensions by using an IFA. From what I believe she previously took commission and deducted fees from the product contributions. Last year she left her company and I believe set up on her own.
Because of personal circumstance last year, I didn't manage to see her and as such didn't sign the pension docs. Then there was some faff where she enrolled all of us on to the government scheme and then straight off (don't really understand this).
Anyhow, I met with her today and she quickly asked me to sign a load of documents (I met her between meetings in a local coffee shop). It was only when I went back I thought it was odd she asked me to sign a direct debit form. Turns out she is billing me £125 per month for 6 months of the year, each year to sort the pension out.
Now this was not made clear that I would pay this, she just said it would be paid. So I assumed that the company would foot the bill. Not so. With my Compliance hat on I would say what she did today was dangerously close to mis-selling.
I've had a word with the MD and he is going to look in to it, as he was not aware that staff were being charged. But I think I will have to sort my own out.
I have no idea where to start. I am not inclined to pay £750 a year for someone to give me 6 questions on "Risk Profiling".
Can anyone here help? I suspect my company will put their contributions anywhere I ask, including some back dated one.
Is anyone an IFA would be happy to speak or communicate? You may get business as I'm also looking into other products.
Thanks
When I started work, my wage was enough to cover off living expenses and a bit of enjoyment. Through a number of financial set backs (helping people out and having supposed friends basically steal from me), I never got one. Instead I did manage to save the cash for a house deposit and bought 18 months ago.
As I am PAYE now with a company and they have previously provided pensions by using an IFA. From what I believe she previously took commission and deducted fees from the product contributions. Last year she left her company and I believe set up on her own.
Because of personal circumstance last year, I didn't manage to see her and as such didn't sign the pension docs. Then there was some faff where she enrolled all of us on to the government scheme and then straight off (don't really understand this).
Anyhow, I met with her today and she quickly asked me to sign a load of documents (I met her between meetings in a local coffee shop). It was only when I went back I thought it was odd she asked me to sign a direct debit form. Turns out she is billing me £125 per month for 6 months of the year, each year to sort the pension out.
Now this was not made clear that I would pay this, she just said it would be paid. So I assumed that the company would foot the bill. Not so. With my Compliance hat on I would say what she did today was dangerously close to mis-selling.
I've had a word with the MD and he is going to look in to it, as he was not aware that staff were being charged. But I think I will have to sort my own out.
I have no idea where to start. I am not inclined to pay £750 a year for someone to give me 6 questions on "Risk Profiling".
Can anyone here help? I suspect my company will put their contributions anywhere I ask, including some back dated one.
Is anyone an IFA would be happy to speak or communicate? You may get business as I'm also looking into other products.
Thanks
PurpleMoonlight said:
Sounds like someone is acting unlawfully opting you out of the official workplace pension.
I think I would have preferred to stay in the original (NEST scheme I think it was), if the alternative was paying £750 per year.I am correct in saying that the company can't have it's official scheme where the staff have to cover the admin costs?
Edited by Wildfire on Tuesday 7th March 16:50
Wildfire said:
I think I would have preferred to stay in the Official Work Place Pension, if the alternative was paying £750 per year.
I am correct in saying that the company can't have it's official scheme where the staff have to cover the admin costs?
Workplace pensions do have charges levied agaist them but they are low and limited by legislation. The member cannot be charged in addition.I am correct in saying that the company can't have it's official scheme where the staff have to cover the admin costs?
Wildfire said:
So I don't have a pension.
When I started work, my wage was enough to cover off living expenses and a bit of enjoyment. Through a number of financial set backs (helping people out and having supposed friends basically steal from me), I never got one. Instead I did manage to save the cash for a house deposit and bought 18 months ago.
As I am PAYE now with a company and they have previously provided pensions by using an IFA. From what I believe she previously took commission and deducted fees from the product contributions. Last year she left her company and I believe set up on her own.
Because of personal circumstance last year, I didn't manage to see her and as such didn't sign the pension docs. Then there was some faff where she enrolled all of us on to the government scheme and then straight off (don't really understand this).
Anyhow, I met with her today and she quickly asked me to sign a load of documents (I met her between meetings in a local coffee shop). It was only when I went back I thought it was odd she asked me to sign a direct debit form. Turns out she is billing me £125 per month for 6 months of the year, each year to sort the pension out.
Now this was not made clear that I would pay this, she just said it would be paid. So I assumed that the company would foot the bill. Not so. With my Compliance hat on I would say what she did today was dangerously close to mis-selling.
I've had a word with the MD and he is going to look in to it, as he was not aware that staff were being charged. But I think I will have to sort my own out.
I have no idea where to start. I am not inclined to pay £750 a year for someone to give me 6 questions on "Risk Profiling".
Can anyone here help? I suspect my company will put their contributions anywhere I ask, including some back dated one.
Is anyone an IFA would be happy to speak or communicate? You may get business as I'm also looking into other products.
Thanks
I don't particularly like NEST (in fact, I have more fundamental issues with its investment philosophy) and there are many PP out there which knock its spots off. NEST isn't my core business so I'm loathe to say what she should or shouldn't charge, but she should make it clear how you are paid, especially if you are going to be worse off as a result, due to her (higher) charges. When I did establish some schemes, I levied a basemark set fee, one off, per member which I thought was fair. From the sounds of it, I charged about half of what she did as a one off, and then introduced discounts due to economies of scale which increased with the number of employees. It's been a couple of years, but from memory, I charged a ten man firm something like £220 per head to establish. It's not onerous work, and a bit of a faff, but it's not rocket science. That was a one off of course, is she charging £750 *pa*? Unless you're chucking money in hand over fist, you'll be left with nothing. When I started work, my wage was enough to cover off living expenses and a bit of enjoyment. Through a number of financial set backs (helping people out and having supposed friends basically steal from me), I never got one. Instead I did manage to save the cash for a house deposit and bought 18 months ago.
As I am PAYE now with a company and they have previously provided pensions by using an IFA. From what I believe she previously took commission and deducted fees from the product contributions. Last year she left her company and I believe set up on her own.
Because of personal circumstance last year, I didn't manage to see her and as such didn't sign the pension docs. Then there was some faff where she enrolled all of us on to the government scheme and then straight off (don't really understand this).
Anyhow, I met with her today and she quickly asked me to sign a load of documents (I met her between meetings in a local coffee shop). It was only when I went back I thought it was odd she asked me to sign a direct debit form. Turns out she is billing me £125 per month for 6 months of the year, each year to sort the pension out.
Now this was not made clear that I would pay this, she just said it would be paid. So I assumed that the company would foot the bill. Not so. With my Compliance hat on I would say what she did today was dangerously close to mis-selling.
I've had a word with the MD and he is going to look in to it, as he was not aware that staff were being charged. But I think I will have to sort my own out.
I have no idea where to start. I am not inclined to pay £750 a year for someone to give me 6 questions on "Risk Profiling".
Can anyone here help? I suspect my company will put their contributions anywhere I ask, including some back dated one.
Is anyone an IFA would be happy to speak or communicate? You may get business as I'm also looking into other products.
Thanks
Thanks Ginge.
I'm not terribly happy about the fact she skimmed over the charges in passing. I have no issue in paying for a service, but the "management fee" is £750 p/a. And I think this is too much. I know she will also be getting commission and taking fees out of the product contributions.
I was also looking to take life cover and investigate a few other bits. I believe that there was a £300 charge for setting this up.
I don't like the fact that we have now been given the option of the company pension that is pay £750 p/a or sort it yourself.
I've had a quick look at your website and it all looks clear and concise. I will wait a bit to see what management says and if it stays at "pay £750 a year" I'll give you a ring and see what you think, if that's ok?
I'm not terribly happy about the fact she skimmed over the charges in passing. I have no issue in paying for a service, but the "management fee" is £750 p/a. And I think this is too much. I know she will also be getting commission and taking fees out of the product contributions.
I was also looking to take life cover and investigate a few other bits. I believe that there was a £300 charge for setting this up.
I don't like the fact that we have now been given the option of the company pension that is pay £750 p/a or sort it yourself.
I've had a quick look at your website and it all looks clear and concise. I will wait a bit to see what management says and if it stays at "pay £750 a year" I'll give you a ring and see what you think, if that's ok?
FredClogs said:
Your employer should have a work place scheme which you can be enrolled onto, in fact they have to have one by law.
How ever s
tty it may be it's likely better than not enrolling onto it, it's essentially a pay cut not to sign up to it.
We can enroll on it, it just costs £750 a year. How ever s
tty it may be it's likely better than not enrolling onto it, it's essentially a pay cut not to sign up to it.Wildfire said:
FredClogs said:
Your employer should have a work place scheme which you can be enrolled onto, in fact they have to have one by law.
How ever stty it may be it's likely better than not enrolling onto it, it's essentially a pay cut not to sign up to it.
We can enroll on it, it just costs £750 a year. How ever s
tty it may be it's likely better than not enrolling onto it, it's essentially a pay cut not to sign up to it.t, shouldn't your employer being paying that? but as I say, assuming your employer is going to bung in minimum 9% and you'll bung in say 3% and get tax relief on that, it's still better than not doing anything. Suspect your employer is getting a back hander off the ifa, perhaps start asking some leading questions see if you cant go all Columbo on their shizzle and negotiate a reduced rate.
Wildfire said:
We can enroll on it, it just costs £750 a year.
No, that's not how it works.From what you have said you were auto enrolled into the workplace pension and then the IFA opted you out. That is unlawful. Then you were offered individual advice by the IFA for a fee and are effecting a personal pension.
If that is true and you are unhappy, you should cancel everything with the IFA and make a formal complaint. You should then ask your employer to enroll you in the workplace pension.
If you want to go the whole hog you can report the IFA to the Pensions Regulator too as they oversee workplace pensions.
PurpleMoonlight said:
No, that's not how it works.
From what you have said you were auto enrolled into the workplace pension and then the IFA opted you out. That is unlawful. Then you were offered individual advice by the IFA for a fee and are effecting a personal pension.
If that is true and you are unhappy, you should cancel everything with the IFA and make a formal complaint. You should then ask your employer to enroll you in the workplace pension.
If you want to go the whole hog you can report the IFA to the Pensions Regulator too as they oversee workplace pensions.
I'm not up to speed on NEST, so I wouldn't comment on legality. But I know this. If an employer so much as comments in the works canteen that 'NEST is cr@p' it may be seen as an inducement to act in a certain way and that alone stands to be scrutinised, and it may even constitute a breach of NEST inducement legislation. If you were an employer, you'd have to be absolutely insane to set up an reciprocal arrangement with an adviser to receive remuneration based on opting out of NEST.From what you have said you were auto enrolled into the workplace pension and then the IFA opted you out. That is unlawful. Then you were offered individual advice by the IFA for a fee and are effecting a personal pension.
If that is true and you are unhappy, you should cancel everything with the IFA and make a formal complaint. You should then ask your employer to enroll you in the workplace pension.
If you want to go the whole hog you can report the IFA to the Pensions Regulator too as they oversee workplace pensions.
http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/detail...
And set up with a hoofing subsidy from us all. Again, I'm not a NEST expert, but didn't they advocate starting off with low risk and then increasing over time, so that younger savers didn't get cold feet and opt out? If they're preloading at something like 1.8% of contributions, luckily, for NEST, you can’t transfer out of Nest. Yet.
Ginge R said:
And set up with a hoofing subsidy from us all. Again, I'm not a NEST expert, but didn't they advocate starting off with low risk and then increasing over time, so that younger savers didn't get cold feet and opt out? If they're preloading at something like 1.8% of contributions, luckily, for NEST, you can’t transfer out of Nest. Yet.
I'm not up to speed on NEST, Al, but isn't one of the theories behind it that you can port this pension to your next Employer unlike the Standard Life one we do which just gets ring-fenced when you leave ??We always ran a GPP for staff at 4% contribution level from both Employee and Employer, though some Employees contributed more.
We have just closed that scheme and opened a compliant one on the same terms (pain in the derriere).
Those staff not in the GPP will be auto-enrolled at an Employee rate of 1% then 2% next April then 5% in April 2019. The Employer contribution will be 4% from day one. Less to change in the future.
Jockman said:
I'm not up to speed on NEST, Al, but isn't one of the theories behind it that you can port this pension to your next Employer unlike the Standard Life one we do which just gets ring-fenced when you leave ??
We always ran a GPP for staff at 4% contribution level from both Employee and Employer, though some Employees contributed more.
We have just closed that scheme and opened a compliant one on the same terms (pain in the derriere).
Those staff not in the GPP will be auto-enrolled at an Employee rate of 1% then 2% next April then 5% in April 2019. The Employer contribution will be 4% from day one. Less to change in the future.
Yes. Your NEST contract stays where it is and the money simply gets funnelled in from a new direction, so it does get around the issue of multiple/orphan pots. Lots of good GPP schemes are compliant, as you point out, administration has to be simple because time is money. And that can impact on pension contributions because it has to come from somewhere.We always ran a GPP for staff at 4% contribution level from both Employee and Employer, though some Employees contributed more.
We have just closed that scheme and opened a compliant one on the same terms (pain in the derriere).
Those staff not in the GPP will be auto-enrolled at an Employee rate of 1% then 2% next April then 5% in April 2019. The Employer contribution will be 4% from day one. Less to change in the future.
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