stakeholder: what you get & when

With a stakeholder pension, you are allowed to start taking your benefits at any time from the age of 50.

Furthermore, you do not have to stop work in order to start taking your pension, although you would be well advised to keep your contributions going and delaying your pension income for as long as possible. Retiring at fifty ( or even 55 ) might sound tempting, but building up enough money to provide a decent retirement income might prove very difficult for most people.

Tax free lump sum

You are allowed to take up to 25% of your pension as a tax-free lump sum at retirement, but doing so will mean only 75% of the fund is left to provide regular pension income after you've retired.

The rest of the fund must be used to provide an income in retirement through the purchase of an annuity or possibly Income Drawdown.

Consideration, again , must be given to researching the Open Market Option to ensure that you get the most from your fund.