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Are SIPP providers ripping us off?

Are investors being ripped off by SIPP providers who in many cases are paying nothing at all for cash held on deposit? Lorna Bourke considers the facts.

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by Lorna Bourke on Jun 08, 2010 at 08:56

Are investors being ripped off by SIPP providers who in many cases are paying nothing at all for cash held on deposit? With bank base rate at a record low of 0.5% savers are suffering – but none quite as much as SIPP investors who often have no option but to accept whatever interest rate their SIPP provider offers.

There are considerable sums at stake too. Pensions Management magazine, which produces an annual review of SIPPs, reckons total investment in SIPPs now stands at £70 to £75 billion. If only 5% of this is held in cash it is still a massive £3.5 billion on which investors are earning little or nothing. The magazine says, ‘it is claimed that for some firms, as much as a third of their revenue was based on their cut of the interest paid on cash deposits.’

With stock markets looking increasingly uncertain, particularly in Europe and the US, investors are anxious to take profits and go liquid in their SIPPs. It is costing them dear. There is no use thinking you can shop around to get the best rate for cash held within your SIPP. You are usually stuck with whatever your SIPP provider offers and in many cases it is – nothing at all.

Of the major providers Hargreaves Lansdown which has £4.4 billion of SIPP funds under management, pays probably the best rates, but they are still pathetic. If you have £50,000 or more cash held within your HL SIPP it will earn 0.25%. Between £7,000 and £49,999 it earns 0.1% and from £1,000 to £6,999 a measly 0.05%. Below £1,000 you get nothing.

And nothing is what you get from most other major providers. Barclays Stockbrokers pays between 2.5% and 1% below Barclays Base Rate but since this stands at 0.5% you get nothing. TD Waterhouse has a similar formula of 1% below Bank Base Rate which also works out at nothing.

Selftrade pays nothing on deposits up to £250,000 and a pathetic 0.1% thereafter. Stockbroker Killik & Co pays nothing unless you have £100,000 or more cash in your account in which case it earns the princely sum of 0.15%. AJ Bell’s Sippdeal.co.uk pays 0.05% on cash up to £49,999 and 0.1% on sums above this level. Alliance Trust makes no bones about paying absolutely nothing and doesn’t even dress it up by saying it is a figure linked to BBR.

So what do the SIPP boys have to say for themselves? ‘With Bank Base Rate at 0.5% what do people expect,’ is the reaction from Mark Dampier of Hargreaves Lansdown. ‘We can get hardly get any margin at all. We are much more concerned with the safety and return of clients’ money and whether we will get it back, rather than the rate paid.’ A fair point given the fears about the safety of banks following the credit crunch. In spite of Hargreaves Lansdown having made £2.534 million according to its 2009 report and accounts on ‘investment revenues’, Dampier claims that this was attributable to a time when interest rates were higher.

So why don’t SIPP providers allow SIPP investors to choose their own deposit accounts? For the obvious reason that it would reduce their profits. Part of the problem is that pension funds are trust funds and not all banks or deposit takers offer trust accounts as they are more expensive to run and place extra legal requirements on the deposit taker.

Having said that, Scottish Widows Bank, for example, is paying 2% on its Pension Fund Deposit Account for sums of £50,000 or more and 1.75% for sums of £500 to £49,999. If you are prepared to tie up funds for five years it also offers a five-year fixed rate Pension Fund Deposit Account paying 4.3% on sums of £10,000 or more.

This would be a useful contribution to many SIPP investors’ funds, particularly those in or near retirement who don’t want to risk their money in volatile stock markets – if their SIPP provider allows them to use this account.

So are SIPP managers ripping clients off? Moneyfacts monitors details of Pension Fund Managers’ Accounts which are used by SIPP providers to park clients’ cash deposits. There are many offering only 0.1% and the best rate of 2% is from Standard Life for 10 days notice money for sums of £500,000 or more. Unfortunately, Moneyfacts does not monitor trust accounts available to individuals with SIPPs but it is worth contacting your SIPP provider to see if they will allow you to switch to the Scottish Widows account. Check whether they also charge a fee if you move.

But do the low rates of interest paid for cash on deposit and the fact that SIPP investors are largely unable to shop around for a better rate elsewhere contravene the regulator’s requirement to ‘treat customers fairly’? If SIPP providers in a higher interest rate environment are making considerable sums of money by creaming money off the top for cash on deposit, this is effectively a management charge. Surely they should be transparent about this and publish details?

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47 comments so far. Why not have your say?

I have half my SIPP in cash at present and am getting virtually zero interest.

The FSA should do something about the lack of transparency and fairness and give us the opportunity to get reasonable rates of interest, particularly coming up to retirement.

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Many SIPP providers do allow clients to have accounts other than those specified by the provider - a SIPP provider will generally specify that a client must use a certain bank for certain transactions as this eases the administrative burden of certain tasks such as relief at source claims.

This arguement really annoys me as a SIPP is a Self Invested personal pension, therefore, the client / adviser should really get their finger out and invest the cash in more suitable investments if they feel hard done by by their provider of choice.

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GJF - have you tried to change your account?

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Interest Rates through your SIPP, but then would the charges go up. Over time H.L has offered its clients locked in high rates.

Keep banging the drums and we will get what we want, at a price

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There are SIPPs that allow full flexibility on cash but these are usually 'full investment' SIPPs which have higher charges than the more restricted SIPPs. Our SIPP, the Sippchoice Bespoke SIPP, is one of these and many of our SIPP members have their cash held with Scottish Widows Bank, as mentioned in the article. And it's very easy to open such an account. As with most things, 'you pays your money and you takes your choice'.

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Money saved foer retirement should be in the total control of the retiring person - not some self-serving financial instituition or trust. The entire structure is failing and following the recent stock market falls illustrates the dangers of giving hard-earned money to another party under any circumstances other then mental incapacity.

The self invested pension scam is just that - a scam. An entire life savings can be lost because the rules insist the money is "invested" in financial products or shares that the SIPP provider deems appropriate. Some of these are appalling performers and the returns on cash are effectively a form of confiscation. It would be better to invest in a buy-to-let and suffer the new CGT than see the balance eroded by inflation.

I want to get access to my SIPP now as I retired last year and would love to help my kids find a place to live.

What the hell did I save it for if I cannot even get at it?

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1. It's scandalous that they should make profits out of interest that should be going to us.

2. Don't forget about inflation. It's eating away at the capital while the low interest rates are not helping to offset this.

3. Financial Advisors have got it made. If the markets riding high they tell us to get in - everyone's making money. If the markets are low they tell us to get in - they can only go up now. They get they're commission regardless. We take the risk.

4. The Scottish Widows account seems like a great deal if you're near retirement and can access it.

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Jimbo

"An entire life savings can be lost because the rules insist the money is "invested" in financial products or shares that the SIPP provider deems appropriate."

I think you need to change your SIPP provider if their rules insist you invest in certain financial products and shares!

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quite openly publish their interest rates on their website, and also give you details of what sorts of other deposit accounts you can invest in.

It is important to remember that for many providers the SIPP bank account is just that - a transactional bank account and should not be considered an investment. Keep the balance to a minimum - after all - who buys a SIPP just to invest in the bank account?

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I have switched to bonds and told my sipp provider that's where the money will stay until the bonds mature thereby it will not available for buying and selling other things which is where they make their money i.e. it is not in their interest to offer derisory interest rates on cash.

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My SIPP is with Standard Life and they have hundreds of funds etc to invest in. My point is that I do NOT want to invest in funds and shares. I do NOT want to be part of the Wall St Casino mentality. I do NOT want to play poker with several hundred thousand pounds.

I want to SPEND my savings or give some cash to my children.

I would also like to put a chunk of money into my own family business because it could use it right now and it would benefit my family in the future.

Knowing what I now know I would never put savings into any trust. But the pensions rules since 1945 were set up to channel part of employee earnings into a savings system to relieve the Government of future liabilities. SIPPS are just another version of this and initially looked like a better option than the total lock-in of company schemes as these sometimes went bust.

But Gordon kill-all-incentive Brown suddenly changed the flexibility that SIPPS were originally intended to provide and at a stroke he destroyed many a pensioner's plans.

Much like Dawn Primorolo with her wretched IR35 that killed off personal contracting firms.

Governments have no right to interfere in this way and the sooner SIPPS are dissolved and all the funds handed back to their rightful owners the better.

Cameron is right to go for small government; and in the same way he should unbundle big savings and let individuals manage their own affairs - they are better at on average.

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Agree with all comments. Spent 2 weeks researching this and the one to use is MINERVA SIPP my advice is check it out.

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Jimbo

I think that you have raised this issue before:

"I would also like to put a chunk of money into my own family business because it could use it right now and it would benefit my family in the future."

Your SIPP is allowed to invest in your company business - there are a few hoops to jump through but it is possible - I have been involved with such transactions many times.

It could be that your current SIPP does not allow this - but many do. If you do a bit of research you will find that many providers offer a great deal of flexibility which it sounds like you are after.

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A lot of people have unrelistic expectations of being paid a handsome interest rate without any risk to their capital. Even if SIPPs paid 3% on cash deposits instead of 0.25% you're still loosing money based on current CPI/RPI inflation figures.

(I should add I don't believe inflation is the biggest immediate risk - I'm with the Bank of England, once the cuts and tax rises start coming through it's deflation that's the biggest threat)

Given all the risks and uncertainties it shouldn't surprise folks that interest rates are likely to remain low, it's unlikely that the BoE would raise rates as the Government cuts. People should be using SIPPs for what they're meant, which is to invest in companies that have solid earnings with high dividend yields which are likely to continue to remain so in tough times.

Investors should be using the market's indiscriminate down-rating of all assets to invest in such companies.

If you allocate a percentage of your portfolio to cash then you are probably doings so in the expectation that assets you wish to buy will become cheaper relative to cash; if not then you're doing the financial equivalent of burying your money in the ground.

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I think a lot of people are missing the bigger picture by getting hung up on the bank rates for cash deposits.

For someone willing and able to research their own equity investments a sipp can provide a very low cost pension investment vehicle.

In my own case I have a Sippdeal Sipp account for which there are no management charges at all during the investing period. This saves me hundreds of pounds a year if not thousands against alternative pension scheme arrangements.

So with the bank rate at 0.5% I wasn't really expecting my sipp provider to be generous with cash rates.

Interestingly, it seems that with an H-L Sipp I would still be paying management charges (capped at £200pa) for the same equity holdings so maybe Sippdeal is unique in this respect.

Anyway £200 is perhaps not a lot in the scale of things but what I find a little galling is that annual charges continue to mount up even if your investment account is dormant for a number of years.

So a low cost charging structure to me was the first priority.

Anyway the wider availability of low cost Sipps has surely ushered in a fairer, more transparent pension arrangement - which in my case I am quite comfortable with, certainly compared with past arrangements.

Yes the return on cash can also be a factor to consider but with the bank rate at 0.5% I'm not expecting much - are you?

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I too was outraged by my "low cost" SIPP provider levying an annual management charge on its in-house client cash fund that was higher than the interest rate paid. I could not easily change this, so I switched around half the cash into an index-linked gilt fund with the same provider. Annual management charge a litle higher, but more than compensated for by a small running yield and the link to UK inflation. And I assume that it is as safe as any cash fund. Moreover, with switches free under this SIPP, I can get back into the cash fund at any time.

Also, picking up Roland's point on bonds, you can get a 4% return (gross redemption yield) from a medium-maturity gilt by holding it to maturity, with no risk (except inflation).

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PensionMan you may well be correct about being able to invest part of a SIPP into a profitable family business but my point is wider than this.

The savings should remain within the control and purview of the saver - not an external financial agency of any description.

The problem with pensions stems from the complexity of tax relief on deposits into it before retirement, tax free employer contributions and an actuarial process that seeks to profit the financial services industry and let the government off the hook at the same time.

No wonder its a complete mess!

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Those who are calling for FSA to do something are under a misapprehension. The FSA is there to serve the interest of the financial industry, not Joe Public. He always has been there to be fleeced.

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This is a very important issue raised. We need more consumer and professional investor awareness of other options in the marketplace.

The main SIPP providers pay exceptionally low rates of interest on cash deposits as well as not offering the full range of permissible investments.

A good SIPP provider will offer both. I declare a personal interest here as Managing Director of Stadia Trustees. My firm feels very strongly about this and we are working to improve choice in the marketplace. For example, we have set up the Ipswich SIPP with the Ipswich Building Society to offer a real SIPP with probably the best deposit rates in the country for SIPP accounts. The Ipswich SIPP has interest rates ranging from 2% for deposits of a £1,000 or more; 2.5% over £25,000; 3% over £100,000 and 3.25% for SIPP deposits over £250,000.

The Ipswich SIPP is also a ‘Real SIPP’ which allows all HMRC permitted investments including unlisted securities, land and property as well as mainstream funds.

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Hargteaves Lansdown discount the intiial cost, in most cases, when you purchase a Unit Trust\OIEC, so, why not purchase say Newton Higher income?

Estimated yield 6.59%.

Then when confidence returns, switch into more risky areas.

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It's a shame that none of them join with someone like Zopa.com to offer real rates.

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I work for a major pension provider and while in this day and age there's hardly anything you can bank on to get a good return its difficult to see that pensions are value for money when you have to live until you are 94 to get back the money you put in.

SIPP's are too expensive and if you think your pension isn't paying out, then ask yourself how is it the financial institutions continue to make multi-million pound profits?

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if the SIPP has your money then it is borrowing from you in the same way as a bank borrows from you when you have money in your current account. If the SIPP provider does not pay you the full amount of interest it earns on deposit then it is guilty of "double dipping" by charging you once for the management fees and twice for the margin of 0.25% to 0.5% it makes in interest. The margin is in addition and on top of you fees. If people sign on for this, then they are being "ripped off" fairly...otherwise...

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I am confused by your comments - you don't want to invest in Stocks & Shares, or funds. You don't want to invest into a 'Commercial Property type option & yet you said earlier that would be of interest to you?!

You mention the tax relief as some sort of a con but bear in mind tax relief is given to encourage people to save for their retirement - if you don't want the tax relief dont save into a pension.

It makes me wonder why you ever invested into a Sipp and why you decided on Standard Life (who you now seem unhappy with) -

just out of interest what type of fund, shares, cash fund etc... did you invest into when you first invested- what made you decide to move your money presumably from deposits (with their extremely attractive interest rates!) ?

As you clearly seem to oppose this decision now!!

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The difference between the FSA keeping a "severe" eye on all the many rip-offs, or actually earning it's money by doing something about them, is of crucial importance to hard pressed investors.

If, as decades of experience have shown, nothing can, or will be done by the FSA then maybe it is merely a pointless QUANGO in need of making the ultimate efficiency saving.

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Lorna Burke's article on derisory Sipp cash rates is of HUGE importance, and Sipp providers and deposit financial institutions just dont get it!

Virtually all pension advisers advise those nearing retirement to switch into cash to preserve their funds... yet it is virtually impossible to do this in a SIPP and earn decent interest.

Either Sipp providers insist you use their one bank account (where they take an often undeclared commission), or deposit takers will not offer the same rates for pension cash as they do for personal savers.

One Sipp provider exception is POINTON YORK who will let you open any deposit account, and the most enterprising financial insititution is, strangely enough, National Savings, which accepts SIPP and SSSA deposits on many of their products.

When will the marketing teams realise that pension investors are iincreasingly insisting on increasing cash options?

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As a SIPP provider I'd make the plea not to tar us all with the same brush! In my experience lots of SIPP providers (ourselves included) allow unrestricted access to other bank deposit accounts - we encourage clients to move surplus cash to accounts such as Scottish Widows mentioned above paying 2%. The culprits here are the SIPP providers who only allow cash to be held in their default bank account at a low rate. Let's be clear about that, rather than giving the impression that the industry as a whole is ripping people off.

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Goverment wants people to invest in Equity.There are Firms providing

fixed Term Bonds linked to Stock Market Index and Protection of Capital

rate of Intrest is 6% for fiv years but this are not provided under SIPP

Account. Do not Understand Why. When SIPP was introduced it was said

you can buy Buy to Let Property but then this was withdrawn.I would like to

control my SIPP Account with no restriction imposed by the Government.

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Im retired and have a Killik SIPP they deposit for a year into what was HBOS at whatever the libor rate is, thats the ONLY choice and take 1/4% off the £180K I have, rates have dropped of course but in addition Killik charge me for having two accounts, one protected rights in addition to the 0.25% plus now they wish to increase 1000% + vat the charge they made to pay me what pension sum Im allowed to draw off. The biggest problem is getting statements from them telling me what they have taken and what pension money I have left and Im currently trying to get them to do what they said right now

The whole system isnt fair, putting into a pension Great? When its time to take ones pension..a nightmare of charges, complications and greyness

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SG Dont be confused, there are many people who have pensions and if they knew then what they know now Im sure would have taken another route. Personally I wish I had as now my pension is trapped in the system and is getting screwed like many others. Putting into a pension, great......taking it is another story and oh yes the Governments chunks taken by the costs and the tax ones pays when its time to withdraw

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JIMBO Im with you 100%

Im in the same boat its a disgrace and I certainly would have done something else had I known the problems when coming to retirement

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Today (Sept 28th) I can say with some feeling that my Standard Life SIPP has dropped in value since mid July by some £45,000. This is all due to the Eurozone crisis and the fall in markets around the world. Luckily I sold most of the holding into cash at about 5350 - against tyhe advice of my IFA - but that is not the point. I did not want my SIPP to be held in the markets anyway. It was only there because my IFA said I should put it there as the return on cash held in the SIPP is effectively zero.

My argument that I did not want to be part of this mad casino is better made than ever now. I want to get ALL my remaining money out before the markets destroy it. To add insult to injury, Standard Life has just sent me a notice saying they are to increase all their charges. What the hell is going on when a SIPP pro vider can unilaterally increase his charges whenever he likes regardless of the fact that the value of the SIPP is being destroyed each day. Standard LIfe are a ponzi scheme and its about time we had a revolution to get all SIPP monies released to their owners before the markets cause a real bloody revolution on the streets.

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Dr Jimbo, sorry to read this but I guess it should come as no surprise. Ive had my SIPP in cash since the last fiasco. Your IFA isnt actually correct in his view that cash is 0, ok its not much at the moment but where is. If you really have lost £45K then that is a disaster for you given what they are charging you on top

Increased charges, let me tell you that my cash sipp holder Killik& Co wants to raise the cost of paying me a sum from my SIPP each year by 1000%, yes I didnt add an extra 0, needless to say Im currently objecting

I can honestly say that if I had not been too busy in my worklife to pay attention and knew what I know now, I would NOT have done a private pension but sought other ways to save. The charges, the unwarranted complications involved, its almost criminal and Governments seem to have condoned it or turned a blind eye. Im with you !!!!!!

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QUOTE It is important to remember that for many providers the SIPP bank account is just that - a transactional bank account and should not be considered an investment. Keep the balance to a minimum - after all - who buys a SIPP just to invest in the bank account?

Rubbish, When the last fiasco happened I ignored my FA converted to cash, annuity rates were awful and I had cancer at the time so didnt know how long I had and needed to make easy access for my Wife. So where Mr GOOD SIPP PROVIDER would you have placed the cash? Whilst the last 2 years has only seem just over 2% return on the particular cash account Im in, just where else would you put it if you just didnt wish to gamble on the stockmarket, didnt want to risk a poor annuity with early death and to try and protect the pension so there is something left after the vultures have tried to pick at it?

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Dr Jimbo Hi

Couldnt help thinking about that sum your SIPP has declined by, if it were me I would need to roll up in a ball. Anyway what figure did you have before you lost so much, can I ask that? If you had put it in a cah account you would have actually been better off I guess, hindsight is great isnt it. I dont use IFAs since mine of 25 years nearly cost me a fortune when I retired, good job at that point I was paying attention

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It was 285k when the FTSE was at 6056 on 8th April 2011. I liquidated most of it when the FTSE hit 5217 in early August becasue it looked as though it would go through the floor but a couple of holdings have dropped almost 30% since then in this current crisis.

The FA advised "hold it will come back". This is the standard response from the industry - "invest for the long term". This is rubbish and means they do nothing while you wait for the fund to reach the same numbers as years before while its purchasing power devalues considerably.

If I could take it all out now with the losses I would - who knows where this crazy Eurozone debacle will end. The Greeks have decided they will no longer respond to the rule of law - the whole country is on the verge of civil disorder because people cannot live on the money they have. We are living in very dangerous times and the politicians are playing poker with the world economy.

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The BOE will print more money soon but that will give it only a temporary filip. Im of a beleif it will dip to well below 5000 in a while. Sure its best to hang in there that is unless you need the money for retirement. Its the same old line they all use, "you need to think long term" doh I had done that for 30 years now Im retiring thanks so will need some safety, security and low overheads, I cant take the money so it has to sit in some providers cash account BOS actually and they take 1/4% for the priviledge and charge now £150 to pay me a sum each year plus global and account charges, you couldnt make it up and it would earn more in the BS, pensions? dont bother the restrictions and creaming off are uncontrollable, have a look and see how your IFA has been profiting too, he makes money from you whether its down or not. Mine for over 20 years nearly cost me a fortune when I retired. I just take the max out each year now and have bought inflation proof savings, put it in ISAs and so on

God Luck

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Dr Jimbo

Does Standard Life prevent you from using other institutions bank accounts where you could get interest? If they do change provider - there are many out there who will.

Standard Life have a right to increase fees to cover increasing costs, just like any other business. I am sorry to hear that you have had such a massive drop in your fund, and I sincerely hope that your funds recover quickly.

You complain about fees. If you were in a stakeholder type plan you would probably be paying a minimum of £2,850 per annum in fees. Do Standard Life charge more than this?

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This has probably been posted already, but an earlier poster mentioned that he'd like to use his SIPP funds to inject money into his company.

I'm not an IFA but wouldn't he be better off in a SSAS, such as Rowanmoor's?

You can choose your deposit accounts and lend money back to your business.

If you have to borrow, it beats feeding the bank's profits.

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"I'm not an IFA but wouldn't he be better off in a SSAS,"

Or he could use the existing SIPP to purchase unlisted shares in his company?

Its a fairly complex area and advice from a good, suitably qualified / experiences IFA would be essential.

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Anybody has experience of SIPPDeal?

They say there are no charges apart from normal buying and selling costs.

Is this too good to be true?

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Indeed, but as these are lightly taxed at disposal, and offer the attraction of drawing low tax income as dividends, wouldn't lending the business money at, say, 8%, be a better idea? The company enjoys tax relief on the initial pension contribution and the interest payable on the loan.

But as I said, I'm not a FA, just someone who takes the time to organise our pensions myself. I learnt at an early age that financial advisors only have their eye on one persons retirement , and it isnt yours.

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Simon - both routes have advantages. SSAS loans are useful and popular, providing the borrower has suitable assets to use as security.

Norman - I use them and they are pretty good. I only have a small pension pot and found their costs for transactions reasonable.

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If you got out of the market just before this current drop you should be 15% up so that’s 3 years inflation taken care of. Markets will struggle to go anywhere in the future because of all the retirees pulling their pensions or what’s left of them. Not to mention most of the western world is busted with debt!

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It has been the position, as far as I am concerned, that cash in the bank for a SIPP account is the 'reserve', rainy day fund, but at lowish levels. Mine at the moment are high, sale of Northern foods (by Capita still sitting-refusing to pay- on thousands, and they won't say why) and Northumbrian Water, but waiting for my Buffet/Graham opportuniy.

By holding various SIPP accounts, the provider can demand a decent rate in the market, much more than the .5% BoE rate, and they take full advantage, whilst paying a peanut for your amount.

My gripe is the charges for any paperwork, including notification of a buy, on top of the brokers fee, not less than £25 for filing a piece of paper, a similar charge for signing a cheque, and that on top of the annual charge of several hundreds of pounds.

Indeed any correspondence attracts a hefty charge, even signing a complaint to the FSA about dodgy actions of registrars. They don't initiate, and G-d forbid that you actually require them to engage brain and get it to grind a little.

For the last couple of years, for me, exclusive of the annual charge, £1,600, exclusive of VAT.

For me I prefer to hold certificates (long term holder) and I do all the admin and decision making, and I have to pay them for filing a piece or pieces of paper?????????????? Even then their account doesn't always reflect the source of the funds, although notified and they ask me, and then charge me for asking a question they already had the answer to (branch allegedly their branch-it has their name, 500 miles away from the admin office) and of course the charge for the answer, £50, money for old rotten rope.

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For those who are complaining about their SIPP provider - change provider. Like with all businesses some are better than others, and some are cheaper than others.

With respect, banging on about how bad your provider is doesnt achieve anything. These companies will only change their ways when they see clients taking their business elsewhere.

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Nigel gardiner

Sep 30, 2011 at 20:47

Pensionman you are correct and indeed Im moving from mine BUT frankly its much more difficult to find a fair one than a rotten overcharging one, and my one promised all sorts of things but the main one was transparency. hoho

Again if you move one can be subject to further "exit charges" for example and so on. I cannot argue your point but there are more bad than good and the rules are not strong enough.

Here I am with a 1000% increase on the fee paying me from my pension pot, I can skip the payment I guess as Im moving, but will then need to wait for 6 months and have areassement at the new place so its not quite as simple as you say alas

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