Pension Income Withdrawal Accounts are becoming increasingly popular and may form the vast majority of your retirement income. Can it be properly managed in your old age?
In order to manage your investments and pension income it is a good idea to have good brains at work and that is not possible if you have lost mental capacity in retirement. Important decisions need to be made and any financial adviser would need you to have a full understanding of the complex decisions you are making about your pension planning and will expect annual reviews to take place. If you are not taking financial advice the dangers of missteps are even greater. Unlikely as you may think now, can you really guarantee that you will never be affected by stroke or dementia, or simply find it all too much to deal with?
To avoid the problem you should consider setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney now for your property and affairs if you haven’t already done so. You can appoint in the document a person (known as an attorney) to act for you, and you can choose family members, someone with investment expertise, or your trusted adviser. Or more simply when you draw up the document you can express your wish that with regard to any Income Withdrawal accounts that your chosen attorneys review your pension fund each year with your financial adviser.
How do we know this is a problem?
Because we have seen situations occurring where there is no Lasting Power of Attorney in place. The alternative which is an application to the Court of Protection is expensive and time consuming and you will not get a chance to choose the attorneys who act for you. We would recommend you take control now and prepare a Lasting Power of Attorney.
