Liquidated company and pension entitlement.

[nowandthen]

Hi there.

I used to run a small building company which was went into liquidation 2 years ago.

When things were going well I was paying 500 euro every month into a company pension scheme.

Unfortunately when my business went bad I also could no longer afford to pay into the scheme.

I am now completely unemployed sadly.

I know that my contributions were set off against my tax at the time.

The fact is I paid over 30K into this pension over the course of a few years and now that I am not working it would come in very useful.

However when I contatced the provider they told me I not expect to cash in on my contributions until I reach 55. That is 8 yrs away.

Is there any way around this? Also when I contacted them I was told that there may be complications when I do go to get the funds because of the fact that my company was liquidated, ( this part I dont understand as it was a personal pension within the company or so I thought)

Can anyone advise me what can I do,if anything?

 

[nowandthen]

I have looked at some of the recent values in the pension and I am in shock! Even though I made contributions of 32,465 euro over several years instead of the fund rising by the projected 6% per annum I now find that my fund or transfer value as it seems to be termed on my policy is at less than 17 K!!

By the time I come to retire there will be nothing left at this rate!!!

What is the point of having a pension if this is the way it performs, feel really angry right now! At this stage I am going to contact one of the companies that say they can transfer the pension to the UK, I may end up with nothing but the way its heading there will be nothing left anyway!