How long did your UK pension transfer take?

[Goochie]

I'm just about to send off the forms to Australian Super to transfer my Scottish Widows private pension from the UK. Each tim eI speak to them they insist on telling me it can take 4-6 months for the process to be completed.

 

I've filled in all the forms from HMRC, Scottish Widows and Australian Super so they just have to tick a few boxes and process it. My UK pension fund is small (less than 10k) and simple.

 

So how can it possibly take 6 months?

 

I'm in no real hurry to move it as I've got another 30 years until I reach retirement age! I just dont see how it could take so long.

[Andrew from Vista Financial]

Hi Goochie

 

Have you opened a new fund with Australian Super? As far as I am aware they are one of the Super Funds that will not allow UK monies to be mixed with non-UK monies and thus require a seperate fund.

 

The timing is dependent on how both parties deal with the administration side of things, 6 months is worse worse case scenario, once Aussie Super receive the forms they only need to complete their section and send them to Scot Wid, this only needs to take 1 - 2 days but being such a big firm with huge amounts of administration will certainly take much longer, if you chase and keep on top of them then that will speed things up.

 

The same for Scot Wid, once received the administration can take from as little as 7 - 10 days (funds will be requested for withdrawal, paperwork double checked) and then theoretically funds can be issued but again being a big firm it's likely to take longer, again chasing will help (in actual fact from experience Scottish Widows are one of the better and speedier companies to deal with).

 

Regards

 

 

Andy

[Goochie]

Thanks for your reply, Andy.

 

I've opened a new account with Australian Super. In fact that was one of the most ridiculous things about the whole process - You have to sign up as a new member in order to open another account, you cant simply add another account to your existing profile (as you would add a savings account in the bank, for example). After a few years (5 or 6 I think) they can shift the former-UK balance into the Aussie fund.