dipsy

The FSA has to consult on any significant regulatory change, it's part of the Financial Services & Markets Act. The good news is that this consultation is still open, the bit about interest only mortgages has now closed but the rest is open until 16th Nov, anyone can respond, I've done so and I recommend others to do so as well.

The problem isn't that there are any rules banning this, but if you have a pension fund particularly from a final salary scheme, many pension providers will not accept a pension transfer unless you have received advice. If the fund is small it's unlikely that you will find an adviser willing to give advice as the compliance hoops they have to jump through means there is no money in it for them. If the pension fund is from another personal pension or stakeholder most providers will accept a transfer in order to consolidate arrangements.

You're right, you do have to abide by GAD limits. Technically though could you deplete the fund? If you taking the GAD maximum and part way through the year there is a huge drop in the assets in which you are invested in, you may have nothing left.

Once you have put money into a pension such as a stakeholder, you can't get any back out until you are either at least 50 or 55 in April 2010. You can get up to 25% of the fund as tax free cash. The remainder of the fund continues to be invested in whatever funds you had it in before you extracted the tax free cash. You can then take an income from that fund at any time, but it will be taxed, your arrangement is now called income withdrawal. By 75 you have to buy an annuity. If your employer is making a contribution and you want to stop paying into the pension you should check as to whether your employer will continue to make their payments. Many employers will only contribute if the employee does, or if the employee stops they may only make contributions at a reduce rate. So you have to balance up the flexibility of say, an ISA, with the potential loss of your employers contribution. A couple of other points to note, most pension providers won't allow income withdrawals on relatively small funds, usually the minimum fund value is around 50k and some won't allow from certain types of pension like stakeholders so you need to check this out with your provider.

Great, I have snowdrops in my garden, that must mean my house is worth about 10% more than my neighbours, they only have daffs.

[quote name='Caribbean Beauty' date='Sep 1 2009, 06:47 PM' post='211554. Lately, a public service mate of mine and his pals with rock solid jobs have all taken to flying BA again instead of Runonair and Sleazyjet, as the fares are sliding down and there is no hassle and a decent ride. Had to fly to Glasgow with two days notice a few weeks ago. BA £176, Sleazyjet £225. Got a almost edible breakfast from BA and no fighting the nesbits for the best seats (pre-booked emergency exit ones online at no extra cost). Unless you can book at least 6 months in advance I've never found "low cost" to be cheaper, once you've added the essential extras.

+ 1

I've not been able to open the documents in your original posting but the plans for the site weren't just for recycling, it was for waste incineration. Frankly I wouldn't live anywhere near such a plant. Surrey CC has been looking at this type of waste disposal for a number of years at various sites but so far as failed to get one opened. With the cost of landfill increasing with central govt taxes it's only a matter time before they get their way. You should check out Friends of the Earth website and similar, waste incineration is supposed to be safe as they are meant to filter all the crap chemicals out but they don't. Lots of cancer causing stuff gets released. If you lived right underneath the chimneys you might not get much fallout as I suspect it would fall further away but I wouldn't take the risk. Agree with other posters, wait 12-18 months time you will be able to buy something better, just rent for now.

Think the offices in Kingswood will remain though.

What "old Legal and General site"? The beeb have moved out but L and G have no plans to move, although it would be very funny to see a load of social housing up there and maybe an immigration centre.

Hi Housespider, moral arguments aside how would you invest the 100k to pay for school fees? You are looking at 13 years, assuming private 6th form as well. I'm currently paying approx 10k in fees per annum for my child (prep). In my experience fees increase every year in excess of inflation. My school has just put it's fees up by 3% despite the credit crunch (some private schools are still doing OK and numbers increasing!). The fees will generally increase by another 20% once your child hits senior school and you will have to take into account the dreaded "extras". I'd say I pay another £500 per annum on extra activities at the moment. 100k, unless it is invested and getting a good return (and God's knows where that is these days), is not going to give you enough. If you can save up from income that's obviously a help or depending on your income you may be able to get a some financial help from the school. These figures obviously depend on where you are as fees seem to vary quite significantly across the country. I'm in the southern home counties so may be more expensive than elsewhere.

This might be of interest regarding the arrangements for compensation from the FSCS re pensions www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/miscellaneous/security_of_pensions/

Would this be a financial services co. in a nice leafy part of Surrey?

This used to be the case pre 2004. Now you can contribute up to 100% of your salary and get tax relief (there is an annual allowance which is over 200k which also limits the tax relief). It's quite a good wheeze to get yourself down into a lower tax band as well!

Maybe the landlord at the Kingswood Arms will have to lower his prices too!

Ah Buddy's may have been a more poetic demise but dying on the loo having consumed one too many burgers sums up the start of the long slide down to me.

It was the day Elvis died.

The with profit fund managers don't consider the terms left on individual contracts. They generally run different asset allocations for each "pool", the pool represents contracts taken out in a certain period so the terms could be variable. You may well find that in the years running up to maturity there is still a pretty high equity content. I'm assuming that your dad's contract wasn't a zombie fund as these generally have very low equity content.

I think that apart from charges which you can bring down by shopping around, one of the other big issues is that by saving enough to provide yourself with a modest private pension you'll likely do yourself out of pension credit and all the other benefits that go with it - you are better off not bothering. Will get worse in 2012 when, unless you are in a "good" pension scheme with your employer you will auto-enrolled into a personal account and you will have to opt out. Low earners will be screwed over - they won't be able to get financial advice as the margins on personal accounts will be so tight no adviser will want to be bothered.

Stakeholders have a maximum charge of 1.5% p.a. Many are priced cheaper, mine is 0.3%p.a. and has loads of funds to chose from. You have to watch the transactions charges on SIPP's, they rack up and as most SIPP's aren't insurance contracts they attract VAT as well.

Noticed today that Kingswood Homes, the estate agent by the station appears to be shut. Fascia's taken down and all property details taken out of the windows. Lights were on but couldn't see anyone in the offices. Either shut down properly or having a re-vamp which is strange when most agents are struggling.

Hmmm, Dirty Vicar! " A must try is Michaela's, creator of the popular Norbury Blue Cheese, new 'Dirty Vicar': a creamy Camembert style cheese with earthy and mushroom flavours."

It amuses me when commentators talk about us joining the Euro. To join don't you have to agreement from the other member states and meet certain criteria? Are they really going to want us with the state of our economy? Once you add NR and all the other off balance sheet debt like PFI we have, we are a basket case.

You have to be performing the regulated activity, advising, arranging etc "by way of business". The first test of this is are you being remunerated for the activity? If you are not then you don't fall under any FSA requirements. If you are being remunerated then there are a number of other tests such as how frequently you are performing the activity, whether the remuneration is such that your business is dependent on it etc. You also have to be talking about specific types of investment, life policies, pensions, shares (specific ones not just predictions of where the FTSE might be), and not rather irritatingly residential property - you can ramp that to your hearts content and the FSA won't give a damn.

I'm not sure which regulations FP is supposed to have breached. He would have to been conducting a regulated activity for a start or making some sort of financial promotion. Generally the regulated activities have to be in relation to specified investments, for example recommending a particular policy - this cannot be done without ensuring the recommendation is appropriate for the person it is directed at. Just making general predictions in a forum wouldn't count. There are stacks of intermediaries posting on internet forums, offering opinions but not in a professional capacity - the FSA are not interested in them.