Author Topic: Accessing Final salary pension for care costs with Power of Attorney  (Read 816 times)

DeeCee

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Hi can anyone help with the following situation?

My brother-in-law (single, no dependents) now aged 55 was diagnosed with dementia 18 months ago and it has progressed rapidly, so he requires 24x7 care. Last month he was accepted into a home costing c. £700/week.

Fortunately, power of attorney was set up in the early stages, with his 2 siblings, so payments from his savings can cover the care home costs for a short while.

The big question then is accessing his final salary pension from a FTSE-100 company in order to pay for the ongoing care home costs longer term. The normal course of events if he did not have dementia might be to facilitate a CETV transfer through an IFA, and then use the funds to pay for the care home costs.

The FTSE-100 company recommended IFA took all the details and started the process, but his boss would not allow it to be processed, but it is unclear why (ombudsman would not allow it?). (They were going to receive fees of £3-5k for doing the analysis/letter).

Has anyone got any experience of this kind of situation and advice on a way forward?

Many thanks in advance, D.




StephenM123

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Who did you speak to in the company? Human Remains (HR) can get things very wrong. A good starting point is the actual pension scheme administrators...

minniemouse

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Brian would know the answer. If he sees your post I'm sure he'd help.
Smoking kills you, bacon kills you, smoking bacon cures it.

StephenM123

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You need to see the scheme handbook. My friend's former company only allows early retirement on health grounds for current employees, former ones have to wait till 65. The only exception is terminal conditions where life expectancy is less than a year as no one escapes the grim reaper...

brian54

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I was a manager and the instructions in the handbook was to contact the pension scheme in this type of situation.
I was however contacted when an ex employee got dementia at age 57 and I do know the pension was paid immediately but I don't know if it was reduced.
I know he was married at the time as his ex wife had POA.
I know ex employees could claim a pension from 55 at a reduced rate even if there were no health problems.
Really I think you have to look at the pension scheme handbook.
Be careful you get the correct handbook as I know my company was dealing with 28 schemes when I retired due to mergers etc.
The scheme I was in changed 4 days after I joined the pension scheme. The old scheme rules apply to me and as a result I am about £800 a year better off.

StephenM123

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I can't stress enough you need the correct handbook. With the company final salary scheme I was in till redundancy in 1983 there were a number of changes. The rally annoying one is that part of the contracted out component is not index linked!  :(