BEWARE THE FREE LUNCH (REVIEW)

However, for those that do not want an ongoing relationship with their adviser, minimising costs is a significant appeal, having a “free” pension review – well music to their ears rather than any recognition of alarm bells. For most of my working life financial advice has been generally touted as free. It isn’t, it never has been and that is frankly the biggest source of all the problems.

COLD CALLING

A friend of mine, Darren Cooke started a lobby in 2016 to end cold calling. Most advisers joined the movement which resulted in the banning of cold-calling about pensions from 2019. Yet it still happens. It is banned, but there you are.

PENSION LIBERATION

There is no such thing, unless you consider liberating your pension from you a form of liberation – I call it theft. You cannot access your pension before age 55 except for a very, very rare number of instances. Safer to assume you cannot.

Moving your pension to a SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension) is absolutely fine BUT only if you are using properly regulated funds within it. Not offshore weird stuff like teak farms or storage boxes, car parks or some other daft “asset” that I can actually set on fire.

NEW FREEDOMS, NEW TEMPTATIONS

Taking your pension is much easier than it used to be. There are new (2015) pension freedoms which have made pensions much better than they were. However, with greater freedom has come greater choice and increased responsibility – yours (and mine). A crook will exploit some basic knowledge (rules have changed) pander to misinformed opinions about stock markets “they are risky and lose you money” and will offer something that sounds altogether better – guarantees, no stock market involvement, high returns -much better than your cash and sometimes money now…. All for free.

Sadly, many do not remember the adage “if its too good to be true, it probably isn’t”, fewer still seek out a financial adviser and if they do, may well be befuddled by what restricted or independent means (invariably a restricted adviser will not mention it, even though they are meant to do so clearly). When a regulated adviser provides advice, he or she is liable for it. I can assure you that we take this very seriously as the liability rather unreasonably, extends beyond the grave.

HANG UP

If you have a friend that you think is being scammed or you are approached yourself, hang up the phone and get in touch with me. I have seen too many people get scammed for one lifetime. A good site to check out is the FCA SCAM SMART site.

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk