Self-Directed Pension Provider for a 200k PRB

Gendrol said:

To add insult to injury, they were going to charge several grand in exit fees (which IMO should not exist on any kind of self-directed plan in the first place).

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Early exit charges usually exist on pension products where commission has been paid to your broker or sales agent in the first year for setting up your plan without being directly deducted from your fund value. Instead Irish Life (and all the other pension companies) recoup the commission they've paid out over a period of years - often five years - from the annual charge. If you move your fund away from Irish Life in the first five years they recoup the commission they've paid out through early exit fees instead. This should have been explained to you at the original point of sale by whoever sold you the original plan. Was it?

Can anyone enlighten me on what provider you choose with the lowest fees? There seems to be an array with various charges. Thanks

sorry for the delay, I got locked out on my hotmail. In the end I moved to standard life, the process was painful and took 3 months. Their platform is really old (it uses the previous days closing figure to value foreign stocks and you have to wait a few minutes for trades and funds to be available) and the fees are higher than Irish Life (a $ 20k Nasdaq purchase is ~$60 in commission plus ~$60 in currency charges). I used Hargreaves Lansdowne for a similar UK SIPP pension, much lower fees, much better platform. I really wish I hadn't been forced to move.

Hi all - just joining this thread - any update from experience of best fees for Self-Directed PRB (mine is a QROPS)? much appreciated

Luckylady said:

Hi all - just joining this thread - any update from experience of best fees for Self-Directed PRB (mine is a QROPS)? much appreciated

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You have to be careful with QROPs as a transfer within 5 years of the original transfer could incur a 55% tax charge.