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Pensioner loses £35k for not buying annuity before 75

Your Money
Written By:
Your Money
Posted:
Updated:
07/05/2013

A pensioner who built up a pot worth almost £50,000 in a Virgin Money stakeholder pension has been left with just £15,000 after failing to buy an annuity before he turned 75.

The Telegraph reports Virgin deducted £35,000 in tax – as required by law – when the pensioner failed to move his cash to an annuity company before the deadline.

A pensions ombudsman report stated Mr K Finn saw his pension post go from £49,169 to £14,760. Finn challenged the decision with an appeal to the Pensions Ombudsman’s office but was unsuccessful.

The law has since been changed, meaning people do not have to buy an annuity at 75.

Virgin wrote to Finn repeatedly in the run up to his 75th birthday telling him he had to take action.

However, the Telegraph reports Finn was taking advice from a firm called the Mortgage Advice Centre and various delays led to the paperwork being submitted just before the deadline.

The report said this meant the transfer of funds to Canada Life could not take place in time.

Tony King, the Pensions Ombudsman, said: “Given that by well before the payment [from Virgin] was made it had been made clear [what the] financial consequences would be of not transferring before age 75, I cannot say that Virgin acted unreasonably in exercising its discretion to make an unauthorised member payment.

“I do not uphold the complaint.”


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