1976 Pension

Your local IFA can advise you.

Re "Your local IFA can advise you." Is it a question that is so complex that I need an IFA to answer it?

Yes. Consult an IFA.

Unfortunately:

1. It depends.
2. It depends.

You haven't said what type of pension scheme you have, or how long you contributed to it.

Pension legislation has been used as something of a political football over the years; every time a successive government messes with it they put down new rules about both future contributions and about how past contributions are dealt with. The resultant wodge of legislation makes it pretty hard to give nice clear answers to questions like yours! An IFA is very likely to be able to provide you with a tidy answer, but I would suspect he would want some more information first so he can work out exactly what it is that you've got.

As a first step, it might be worth asking the people you got the updated statement from to tell you whether it should have been indexed and whether you can take the pension as a lump sum. While you are at it you might as well ask them if you can have a copy of the scheme rules- if the pension administrators can't answer your questions to your satisfaction, the scheme rules will give your IFA something to chew on.

Often, you are only allowed to commute a pension to a cash sum if 1) the scheme allows it and 2) the total amount of pension income you will receive is tiny. As a result, the administrator's may be able to tell you that you *can't* take it as a cash sum (if the scheme doesn't allow it), but they may not be able to tell you that you *can* (as that depends on factors outside of their control). Try not to be too annoyed with their poor call centre people if they can't help you :)

Mouse

Yes, and one that is qualified to advise on pension transfers, not just any IFA.