From: "Eric Jones" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Having a pension paid in all one go
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 12:05:21 +0100


"Snozelem"  wrote in message 
news:IOOkg.24527$qD.7141@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net...
> My mother is 63 - she has just been diagnosed as having dementia.  She has 
> a small occupational pension which she gets paid a meagre sum of about 
> £120 per month.  When she was assessed, the Dr said her condition will 
> mean she has got a life expectancy of around 4-8 years, but with the last 
> few years getting increasingly worse to the point where she won't 
> recognise people etc and become increasingly house and then bed bound.  We 
> have thought about the impact of this, to the point that we want mum to 
> have as good as few years as possible up to the point where she does 
> deteriate.  We've been trying to work out if we can get her pension paid 
> out all in one go so she can enjoy her last few cognitive years without 
> worrying about having to save up for them.  My mum paid into a pension 
> fund for all the years that she did work (in between bringing up three 
> kids on her own and in the pre-1990 years when the state cared little 
> about "hard working single parent families" - father had died so no 
> maintenance from him or his estate).  Her pension fund when she retired 
> was moderate and based on what she had then and her current life 
> expactancy she is not going to get the benefit of what she paid in all 
> those years.  We're obviously not looking for a full refund of that 
> pension fund, but wonder if it is at all possible to get a settlement 
> value of the existing pension fund so she can enjoy it now on a few 
> holidays etc before she gets too ill.  Sorry for rambling.
In a word no.
She could have taken a quarter of her pension fund as cash when she retired 
but I do not think this can be backdated.
Sorry to be blunt but pension schemes work because some pay in more than 
others whilst only drawing a small proportion in retirement before they die.
If everyone was allowed to withdraw ''their pension fund'' there wouldn't be 
a fund to withdraw from.