Transferring personal pension to Australia?

[Basle6]

Thinking of emigrating to Australia with a �10,000 pension fund in the UK with a Life Assurance company.

What are the options?

[tamborine]

Open UK HSBC account and draw out at Oz branch.

[Hymie]

Your can only buy an annuity with your pension fund, you cannot transfer it to a bank account and withdraw the money.

If you are over 50 � you may be able to get hold of the whole amount � based on it being considered a trivial amount (less than �16,000). You will need to contact the pension fund to see if this is possible. Otherwise, you will have to wait until you are 50 (this becomes 55 in 2010) until you can get hold of any of the money.

There was a time, whereby for �10, Australia would welcome Brits with open arms. Now things are very different � if you are thinking of retiring to Australia, you will need to show that you will not become a burden on the State. Having a pension income of �10,000 per annum will not meet that criteria. An annual pension of over �20,000 plus savings and you might be in with a chance. You can check out whether you would qualify to emigrate on official Australian websites.
I would not recommend those claiming to get you Australian residency for a fee � when you can check things out for yourself, for free.