I think HL used to offer UK SIPP but not any more if not UK resident. Are there any options?
I had 2 employers in the UK and pensions from both have been transferred around and lost. I might have located one and if I can get access to it, transfer it to somewhere I can control myself.
Be careful, I lost my pension by transferring it to a SIIP and was refused compensation by FSCS, all I got was the transfer fee of £1800.
Because of fraud?
Not exactly fraud. It was a company pension I’d had years ago that I moved to another company and it wasn’t doing well so a financial adviser I’d had for a number of years who I thought was a friend said I’d be better putting into a SIPP. The SIPP scheme was approved by HMRC so I assumed it would be OK, and there were no fabulous interest amounts quoted like other dodgy schemes around. It also wasn’t being invested in eco schemes like forests in S America or wind farms. we had a business at the time and our accountant told me she had a SIPP, she also knew the financial advisor.
Anyway everything went wrong and the company shut the SIPP down before they could be taken to court after it was found they should only have been offering it to people who were seasoned investors with a lot of money and not people with smallish pension pots. It was then sold on to another pension company who came under scrutiny as well and has now been in the hands of administrators for years who’ve unsuccessfully tried to get a buyer.
My OH had a case that mirrored mine, he had money in the same SIPP from a small works pension he had from years ago. However in his case he got full compensation.
We found out later the person we thought was a friend was actually an introducer for this scheme working with another pension guy and was being paid a fee of about £850 for each person he signed up. I then found out my pension pot passed through 3 different companies before it even got to the SIPP, the owner of one of the companies went to prison for siphoning money from the pension of an elderly couple she was advising.
I paid a Chartered Financial Advisor in Edinburgh to handle my FSCS case. he was totally shocked I didn’t get compensation and told me to appeal but it didn’t do any good. I’ve also had it in the hands of a specialist no win no fee legal firm in the UK who have successfully managed to get clients compensation. Unfortunately it was timed out because the pension company refused all requests to release my file.
When I appealed the FSCS decision they just told me I was responsible as I had signed the transfer papers (but then again so had my OH and he got everything back). The CFA I had in Edinburgh told me FSCS were employing people as claims handlers who had previously worked for phone companies and they were given 2 weeks training in SIPP claims, which doesn’t actually inspire confidence if things go wrong. At the end of the day I felt really stupid I had got myself into this as I’m known for being careful when it comes to money. C’est la vie as they say, I learned a lesson about trusting people.
Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, there seem to be quite a lot of sharks that try to relieve people of their pension pots.