Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Personal pension definition

What does Personal pension mean? A personal pension is an individual, contract-based, defined contribution arrangement that a person sets up with an authorised provider to build a retirement pot. It functions like a money box for the individual: contributions (from the saver and, in some cases, an employer) are invested, and the benefits depend on the amount paid in and investment returns. In the UK, personal pension scheme is a statutory category, distinct from occupational schemes and generally registered for tax purposes under the Finance Act 2004. Common forms include stakeholder pensions and Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs). Providers and advice are regulated by the FCA; where...

UK personal pension transfers: statutory and non-statutory rights, recognised transfer rules, due diligence and scam safeguards, advice requirements, tax implications, protections, and block/bulk transfer issues

Published by a LexisNexis Pensions expert

Practice notes

A pension transfer

A pension transfer takes place when an individual’s rights under one pension scheme are moved to another. The ceding scheme passes the relevant assets to the receiving scheme, which then assumes responsibility for providing the benefits for the person concerned.

Members of all UK registered pension schemes that are personal pension schemes have an overriding statutory entitlement to transfer the cash equivalent of their benefits to another pension arrangement, subject to meeting certain prescribed conditions.

Many personal pension schemes also allow transfers out in wider situations than those giving rise to the statutory right, for example:

partial transfers
transfers of benefits that are in drawdown
transfers of particular assets in non-cash form

In practice, it is crucial that transfers paid from personal pension schemes constitute a recognised transfer for HMRC purposes and do not inadvertently forfeit any tax-related protections or statuses the member may hold.

Personal pension schemes can also receive transfers from other pension schemes, although the only circumstance in which there is a statutory right to this (indirectly conferred through the...

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Alistair Hill

Brodies LLP

Alistair is a Legal Director in the Brodies pensions team, where he practices both as an English and as a Scottish solicitor. He helps a broad range of employers, trustees and other professionals with defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes, including advising on the pensions aspects of corporate transactions and public/private sector staff transfers. From his days in-house at a leading insurer, Alistair has also retained an active interest in developing and maintaining defined contribution pension propositions from the provider's and administrator's viewpoint, such as personal pension, mastertrust and SIPP products. While he would argue passionately that clients shouldn't haven't to worry about them unless they want to, Alistair has always been interested in the more technical aspects of pensions law. Besides his work for LexisPSL, this has led him to play an active role in the professional bodies and more generally in debating law reform and...

Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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