Pension/saving for a mortgage

Citizen Jake

Registered User
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Hi guys, This is a passage from an article in the business section of today's (16/505) Indo:

"One of the pension options which needs to be examined is providing tax incentives for a portion of SSIA or pension contributions to be assigned as a 'deposit' for a mortgage.
Currently, 25pc of a pension fund can be taken as a tax-free lump sum at retirement. If young workers knew they could assign that 25pc portion for the purpose of raising a mortgage, pensions might become more popular with those in their twenties and thirties.

Any failure to repay the mortgage could be made up by a State pension guarantee scheme funded by a strict ceiling on tax-free contributions by the country's top executives. "

I've been paying into an Ark Life pension since I was 21. The total fund is worth right now between 15k and 20k. I put around e300 a month in and am now 32 and earn 45k per annum. I haven't yet bought a house and have around 5k in the bank and am saving constantly to boost this so I could perhaps buy in a year or two's time. Referring to the above, is there such a scheme in existence that would enable me to offset some of my pension savings/contributions towards securing a mortgage or am I living in coockoo land?

Jake
 
I'm pretty sure you can't use your pension fund to buy your own property. You may well need to reduce your pension contributions to build up a house deposit. Have you checked to see that the charges you are paying on your Ark Life policy are competitive? They had some awfully expensive policies out there at times.