The advantages of pension transfers for UK expats.

During your working life it is frequent to have between 5-6 jobs and/or you then become self employed, each with different pension schemes and it's often difficult to maintain track of them all. This problem is heightened by many pension providers being taken over or merging with each another. You're are likely to faced with not actually knowing who holds your pension let alone what the value is. Generally people will have lost the details of their pension or their financial adviser once they have moved country or you may even have discarded some schemes as you were with an work for only a short amount of time.

A pension transfer is the procedure of transferring the money and assets from one pension into another.

Although it may seem sensible to have all your pensions in one place, it’s not always the best option. We strongly proposed that you converse to a financial adviser before transferring your pension.

As an alternative, if you would like to discuss the options available to you, They can discuss the options available to you, in a healthy way without giving advice, clearly stating any advantages or disadvantages.

If you make the decision to transfer, be sure to get full details of the process.

Things to evaluate before you transfer your pension

-Your retirement objectives

-Your attitude to investment risk

-Features of your existing plan compared to your new plan

-Charges you will incur

-Is it possible to change your current plan

-The amount of time left to run until your retirement date

-Changes to your personal circumstances

QROPS is the name given to UK government approved personal overseas pension schemes, which enables individuals to make their own investment decisions from the full range of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) approved investments.

Once you have been a non UK resident for a time period of 10 years, your QROPS provider no longer has to report your holdings or income withdrawals, so you can take full advantage of the advantages that exist by moving your pension overseas. You do not have to wait 10 years in order to transfer your pension, it basically has to be your intention to move overseas during retirement and not return, you can still enjoy the benefits of receiving your income free of UK tax, which maybe extremely beneficial should you be looking to retire.