Last Wednesday, the government published their Strawman proposal on the auto enrollment pension scheme. In other words, this is a very rough draft and the actual form of the scheme will be different. Personally, I am in favour of mandatory pension schemes as I believe that people should be able to enjoy retirement as well […]
The government published the Pensions Roadmap, another document outlining the government’s plans to address a number of pension issues that have tackled. This is another document that can be added to a number of pension papers that have been written and left sitting on a shelf. I have summarised some of the main points addressed […]
Just after I write in a post about Investment Risk , there is news that peer to peer investing with Linked Finance is now available to pension investors. This is not something that we welcome as we believe that peer to peer finance is extremely risky and a lot of investors are not aware of the investment risks. […]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about self directed pensions and how they differ from the typical pension that you take out with an insurance company. One of the big differences is the greater freedom of investment choice. You are not restricted to the suite of funds that are offered by an insurance company. However, people being […]
As people become more knowledgeable about investments they want to have more control over their investment choices. That is why that is one of the reasons why self directed pensions have become so popular in the last few years. A lot of people get confused when trying to understand the difference between traditional insured pensions […]
Borrowing to buy property in your pension is back available. Last week ICS Mortgages announced that they are going to start lending again to pension funds to purchase property. During the Celtic Tiger, purchasing properties through pensions were very popular. When the recession hit, people couldn’t keep up repayments and fell into arrears. As the […]
If you have pensions in the UK that you want to transfer back to Ireland, there were some big changes made in the UK Finance Act recently that you should be aware of. In order to transfer benefits from the UK to Ireland, the receiving pension has to be QROPS (Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme) […]
There are circumstances where people have relatively small pension plans when they get to retirement that will only pay them a pittance each year. To avoid that, the Revenue allow what is called a “trivial pension” ie the pension is so small, they let you cash the whole lot in. There are two circumstances where […]
There was an interesting article in The Irish Times last week and the age old debate of buying an investment property or investing in a pension . With the Irish obsession with property now back in full swing (after the prices have risen again!), it is a well timed article. I am not a big fan […]
There wasn’t much in Budget 2017 and the Finance Bill regarding pensions. One thing that did was announced was the closing of an anomaly regarding PRSA’s and RAC’s that were not matured past age 75. If you are over age 75 and have an unmatured PRSA or RAC, it is very important that you are […]