How to get the cash out of your Pension

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 24 Dec 2010, 18:35

It was not in the last house price downturn. London properties have still not recovered from 2008. Expect repeat performance in 2011, which would mean further downturn in London (and everywhere else) property prices even before prices recovered from the last downturn.

A friend of mine intended to sell a flat in Chelsea, just off King's Road, missed the last downturn, thought she would need to sell it at a loss and finally, just three months ago sold at break even, after some 10 years of ownership. As an investment, it was pretty poor.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 24 Dec 2010, 18:52

Im talking about mansions not flats. And prices in super-prime London have done very well.

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 24 Dec 2010, 19:30

I see, you mean £4mil plus. And you believe that people on this forum have pension funds of that size?
I suggest we devote this thread to pensions, as I intended when I started it 5 years ago.

Lord Beria3 · Post by **Lord Beria3** » 25 Dec 2010, 11:29

Well, one possibility is to put your money in a fund that invests in those kind of properties - you only need a few thousand.

With the 4/5% yield every year, over a process of 10/20 years the value of your fund could grow considerably.

Tangata · Post by **Tangata** » 19 Jan 2011, 11:10

So, I think I've found a SIPP that allows investment in Bullionvault and has low charges:

https://www.epml.co.uk/

£100 to open sipp then £250 per year, and they've been around a while, or the MD has:

"Francis Moore, Managing Director, EPM is the acknowledged 'Father of SIPPs' having set up the first dedicated SIPP company in 1990 and writing the first ever SIPP in March 1990.

Francis was instrumental in the early development of SIPPs."

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 19 Jan 2011, 12:16

Lord Beria3 wrote:Prime commercial/residential real estate in central London should be relatively immune as the worlds global superrich are the main buyers in this area (Kensington, Belgravia, Mayfair, City of London etc).
The superrich like to buy property in these areas as a kind of investment in hard assets - this is likely to increase as bonds/equities get more dodgy.
So I would suggest that while overall property will be a bad investment (in the West at least) you can make a exception for 'super-prime' real estate.

"Prices were highest in Tokyo's Ginza district in 1989, with choice properties fetching over 100 million yen (approximately $1 million US dollars) per square meter ($93,000 per square foot). Prices were only marginally less in other large business districts of Tokyo. By 2004, prime "A" property in Tokyo's financial districts had slumped to less than 1 percent of its peak, and Tokyo's residential homes were less than a tenth of their peak, but still managed to be listed as the most expensive in the world until being surpassed in the late 2000s by Moscow and other cities. Tens of trillions of dollars worth were wiped out with the combined collapse of the Tokyo stock and real estate markets. Only in 2007 had property prices begun to rise; however, they began to fall in late 2008 due to the financial crisis."

It doesnt get more Super Prime than $1million a square metre in 1989 dollars. But the fact remains, if you bought a 50 sqm house for $50m, today its worth $5m. That is a loss on a biblical scale.
To believe the same cant happen to London is utter madness.

Thanks for the link, I'm looking into bailing.

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 19 Jan 2011, 13:57

Tangata wrote:So, I think I've found a SIPP that allows investment in Bullionvault and has low charges:

https://www.epml.co.uk/

£100 to open sipp then £250 per year, and they've been around a while, or the MD has:

"Francis Moore, Managing Director, EPM is the acknowledged 'Father of SIPPs' having set up the first dedicated SIPP company in 1990 and writing the first ever SIPP in March 1990.

Francis was instrumental in the early development of SIPPs."

and after a while you may be able to run it yourself and save yourself those £250 a year. Anyone can register themselves as a pension administrator for their own pensions - no qualificatins necessary.

Tangata · Post by **Tangata** » 19 Jan 2011, 15:35

That's good to know Paul. Which pension provider did you use initially? And were you a co-trustee of the pension to begin with (I notice IPS arrange it so that the person taking out the SIPP is co-trustee, but not many others do)

Did the provider offer any resistance to you 'taking over'?

Tangata · Post by **Tangata** » 18 Feb 2011, 11:27

So I moved half my pension pot into Bullionvault last week. The other half I'm hoping to put into agriculture / water / possibly renewable energy stocks.

HOWEVER....

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/here-c ... nd-sell-it

the glassworkers pension fund (SPVG) was ordered by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB, or the equivalent of the Dutch central bank), that it has to sell the bulk of its gold assets. After the SPVG refused to comply with the order, the DNB went to court and the decision has come out, siding with the central bank, ordering the SPVG to sell the required gold within two months. The pension fund, which invests for 1142 employees, in late 2009 had gold bars worth 34.6 million euros, or about 1400 kilograms. The total fund assets amounted to 288 million euros at that time. The DNB argued gold is a commodity and holding 13 percent was overweight in comparison to the 2.7% average that pension funds are invested in commodities

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 04 May 2011, 14:31

If too many unions emulated the glass workers where would the stock market be? Even more in the sh1t than it is already. Can't have that, can we?

GlynG · Post by **GlynG** » 03 Jun 2011, 17:15

I'm 29 and have a pension of £1,161 from my last job. I wish I'd never taken it out now as I expect the money to be gone or next to worthless by the time I retire (if I/we make it that long).

I'll admit I haven't read all the thread and details that thoroughly, but in general do people think it would be worth me investing such a small pension into some land/gold/whatever so I can get some use/money from it?

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 03 Jun 2011, 17:59

GlynG wrote:I'm 29 and have a pension of £1,161 from my last job. I wish I'd never taken it out now as I expect the money to be gone or next to worthless by the time I retire (if I/we make it that long).

I'll admit I haven't read all the thread and details that thoroughly, but in general do people think it would be worth me investing such a small pension into some land/gold/whatever so I can get some use/money from it?

You can't get hold of the money anyway, so it doesn't matter. I have about £3,500 in a pension (I'm 43). If I could turn that into gold I'd do it tomorrow.
I am not expecting to ever see that money, and have absolutely no intention of paying money into any other pension. Might as well flush it down the toilet.

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 03 Jun 2011, 19:09

You can get hold of the money. I have done it 5 years ago. Just read the first few posts and then the last few from me. Its all there.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 03 Jun 2011, 19:35

PaulS wrote:You can get hold of the money. I have done it 5 years ago. Just read the first few posts and then the last few from me. Its all there.

SSAPS cost some ?1,200 to set up and some ?500 per year in charges (because by law you must have a 'pensioneer trustee' and produce annual accounts). SiPS are probably cheaper.

No point then, is there? By the time I've set it up and paid five years worth of charges then all of the money will be gone. I only have a few thousand pounds in my pension.

Tangata · Post by **Tangata** » 03 Jun 2011, 21:27

I rescued my work pension a few months ago. Half is in gold the other half in a Building Society cash deposit account.

http://www.epml.co.uk/

£100 to open the sipp thencharges are £250 per year (plus an extra £100 per year to administer the extra Building Soc account) so £350 a year in total.

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How to get the cash out of your Pension

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