Now normally this would probably raise in your mind the the thought that you were being targeted for some kind of scam.
After all why would someone have £100,000 that belongs to you and you not know about it?
But what if this message was coming from an English Law Court and what if you had an official document confirming you entitlement to the cash?
You might be more inclined to believe it is true. So of course you would claim the money – wouldn’t you?
Well it appears that not everyone would.
Today we were approached by a fellow IFA for some specialist help.
A client had come to her for help with his pension plans. It seems that some years ago he and his then wife had gone through divorce and part of the outcome of that was that she was granted a 50% share of his pension fund.
He produced a copy of the Pension Sharing Annex sealed by the court on 9th February 2007 and very clear that she was now entitled to approximately £100,000 (50% of the value of his CETV).
You can imagine that after the divorce, when some of the emotions had started to subside, she might well have thought to herself “well at least I have secured some pension income for myself”.
But not yet she hasn’t.
It appears that to date some five plus years later she has not decided whether to elect for “shadow membership” an internal transfer of her rights (which I think she should go for because this is a “final salary” scheme we are talking about) or indeed an external transfer into a pension plan of her choice.
So she has £100,000 waiting for her to claim but she has not done so, even though she has a court document proving the money belongs to her.
Seems to me she needs to get in touch with a suitably qualified adviser right now.
Photo credit: Flickr/HowardLake
