Expat Financial Planning

What do I do with an inherited pension?

A pension is typically the second largest asset that someone owns (after the family home). However, they often get overlooked when people think about passing on their wealth, as they fall outside of an estate for inheritance tax (IHT) purposes. Understanding pensions and what to do when you inherit one can be tricky too, with various options and considerations depending on the type of pension and your circumstances. This blog…

Lost and Found: Securing Your Financial Future

Today is Pension Tracing Day. When it comes to financial planning, pensions often lie at the heart of long-term security. However, with job changes, relocations, and the hustle and bustle of life, many of us lose track of these essential financial safety nets. Enter Pension Tracing Day – a day dedicated to helping people reconnect with their lost or forgotten pensions.

Expat Finance 101: 10 Reasons You Should Have a Will

You have probably been told on numerous occasions that you should have a Will. Indeed, doing so may have been on your mental to-do list for months or years. However, you haven’t yet gotten around to it. This may just be due to the hustle and bustle of day-to-day expat life. It may be that you aren’t really sure how to get started. Nonetheless, making a Will is one of the most important things we can do.

The importance of properly nominating beneficiaries

If you have a life insurance policy or a pension, have you nominated who you want to benefit in the event of your death? This is something that I strongly advise all clients do. If you don’t have an up-to-date beneficiary nomination form in place, your assets may be distributed in a way that is very different from what you had in mind. Making a beneficiary nomination puts you in control and gives you certainty over where your money will…

How are defined benefit pension transfer values calculated?

In the past decade, huge numbers of people have transferred their final salary/defined benefit pensions to a SIPP or QROPS as Cash Equivalent Transfer Values have soared. However, since the start of 2022, these valuations have started to fall back and I have had numerous enquiries from people wanting to know why their pension transfer value has dropped. In this post, we will look at the nuts and bolts of how a defined benefit pension cash transfer value is calculated.

I’m resident overseas, but where am I domiciled?

The formal definition of domicile is “the country that a person treats as their permanent home, or lives in and has a substantial connection with.” However, domicile and residence are not the same. It is entirely possible to have lived in the same country for many years, even decades, and consider it your “home”, but still be domiciled elsewhere. This is because once you acquire a domicile, you retain it until you replace it with another.