17 Jun 2015

£250m of pension pots spent on housing

Blog, Publications

‘Official figures suggest that £1bn has been transferred from people’s pensions since new rules were introduced two months ago. Some £250m has been spent on holidays and cars by savers cashing in their pension pots and a further quarter of a billion has been put into the property market or home improvements, according to Hargreaves Lansdown, which analysed the figures.

Source: The Times’

Granny said I must never say “I told you so”: but this is exactly what many people warned Gorgeous George would happen. The evidence suggests that a significant number of people seem to regard the opportunity to draw funds from their pension pots as more akin to a lottery win than to responsible financial planning. Perhaps those pension funds which are alleged to be dragging their heels in facilitating withdrawals will actually be seen in time to be doing their investors a favour.