What is a SIPP?
A self-invested personal pension (SIPP) is the name given to the type of UK government-approved personal pension scheme, which allows individuals to make their own investment decisions from the full range of investments approved by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). SIPPs are a type of personal pension scheme.
How does a SIPP work?
It’s a pension ‘wrapper’ that holds investments until you retire and start to draw a retirement income. It is a type of personal pension and works in a similar way to a standard personal pension.
SSAS
What is a SSAS?
- If a regulated financial adviser arranged your pension transfer into a SSAS and you have lost money due to the unsuitable advice provided by that firm, you may be entitled to compensation.
- If an unregulated sales company arranged the SSAS or the pension transfer we may not be able to help.
How does a SSAS work?
Company owners may set up small self-administered schemes to take advantage of a rule that allows businesses to borrow from pension assets.
Family Pension Trust
What is a Family Pension Trust?
A Family Pension Trust is a private pension scheme, independently established for the benefit of its members who may be a group of financially like-minded individuals or family members. It is a cross between a Small Self-Administered Scheme ( SSAS ) and a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) which is also registered with HMRC.
How does a Family Pension Trust work?
One Family Pension Trust with several members to buy property is much cheaper and less complicated than using the standard method of setting up several Sipps and joining them together. As this scheme operates under Sipp rules, there is a very wide range of investment choices for holders of the Family Pension Trust including land, unquoted shares, gilts and bonds, and a much wider range of pooled funds than are usually available within traditional pension funds.
What does all this mean for you?
These kinds of pension environments should be perfectly safe for you, especially if a regulated financial adviser recommended them for you after researching your personal circumstances and providing a recommendation for both the wrapper and the investments you would like to place within.
Unfortunately, there have been situations where unregulated introducers offering high-risk and unregulated investments have found providers, which, in the past, didn’t require the involvement of a regulated financial adviser. In other situations, the IFA’s recommended the wrappers without providing advice on the underlying investments.
If you have lost money and don’t understand what has been happening or what to do, you need to start looking for answers – but in the right way!
Understanding your options
If you are not sure how to proceed and have been told to sit tight and wait, you may find that you run out of time.
A simple phone call can give you the clarification you need to understand if you may be entitled to compensation.
The steps you take are up to you. You can make a complaint yourself or use the services of specialist firms, but – most importantly – don’t sit and wait for the return of your money and risk running out of time.
And if you decide to raise a complaint yourself you also have to ensure you see it through and let an Ombudsman (and not just an adjudicator) decide who is right or wrong.
The Ombudsman’s decision is final and binding – and an Ombudsman may not necessary agree with an adjudicator’s opinion.
If you’d like to find out more, give us a call today.