How do you transfer a pension pot into a vanguard type tracker fund?

[Lionsea]

If i decided to transfer the funds into a Vanguard type tracker fund do I have to pay a financial advisor to do this or is it easy to do myself?

I just don't understand how it works.

You can do it yourself on the Vanguard website. I've transferred over from other providers (which can take quite a long time - they don't like to make it easy!) into ISA and Pensions on the Vanguard website/portal into Vanguard Index trackers.

If you cannot choose whatever fund you want on the platform that the pension is in currently then I would open a SIPP (you can do this online), transfer the pension(s) into it and then you can invest. how you want. I've just done this, I transferred 5 pensions, the quickest was about 9 days and the longest was about 15.

BTW the SIPP needn't be a Vanguard one in order to invest in Vanguard funds. I am with a different provider as the Vanguard SIPP only lets you invest in their funds and their platform is also more expensive for me.

Vanguard thought that they could transfer my pension into their pension in about 30 days. After eight months they requested that I agree to give up on the endeavour as my existing pension people simply refused to cooperate with them.
I have no idea what can be done about this, but after an enormous amount of effort, that it is absolutely nothing. My existing Pension is with the South Yorkshire Residuary Body and is a higher education pension worth about £28K and so does not require any input from an IFA.
Paul Shears

What type of pension is it... Defined contribution or Defined Benefit (final salary or career average type)? This makes a difference as to whether it can be transferred without receiving financial advice.

Yes. Of course you are right. The threshold for financial advice is £30K. I am below this. The refusal from my existing tiny pension provider had nothing to do with financial advise (Which I neither need due to unwarranted interference from corporate process followers nor require). This utter fiasco has dragged ion for years due to a mistake by my pension provider who employ "helpdesk" calibre staff who could not even get their story straight.
For full disclosure here, the initial error that I made was to believe what they told me. I have spent an absolutely enormous amount of time on this transfer and I have failed. I was very surprised when Vanguard, who had all the facts, told me that they could definitely transfer the pension. It took about eight months for my existing pension provider to even reply to Vanguard with a refusal to cooperate. Vanguard contacted me and told me that they simply did not know what to do about this.

Most of the advice here assumes this is a DC pension. If it’s a DB pension you need to think carefully about trading a known income for more flexibility but with less certainty about what your fund will be worth when you retire.

2 Part answer here.

Firstly, the how. Vanguard has a pretty easy step by step process, as long as you have the existing provider info, applying should be easy. As a pp touched on, the speed of the process will be dependent on the transferring scheme. If you have a simple post 2006 pension to transfer you shouldn't need to employ an adviser.

Secondly. Should you transfer? Well if you will be giving up certain benefits as a result of transferring, such as protected tax free cash, guaranteed annuity rates, guaranteed minimum pension, protected retirement dates and so on (a good marker for this would be if it predates 'A day' in 2006) then transferring may be disadvantageous, and you should seek advice before transferring, indeed if this is you, your transferring pension provider may insist you take advice before authorising a transfer. They need to show that they are protecting you from financial self harm.

I have gone into everything to the ultimate degree. I know exactly what I am trying to do, why and the consequences. I have zero confidence in my existing in pension provider. The fact that it took them about eight months to give Vanguard a complete refusal to cooperate is just one example amongst a great many others of why I want to see the back of them. I am trapped due, in part, to my trusting that what my existing pension provider told me many years ago, was actually true. And that is all there is to it. Yes, Vanguard do have a simple and straight forward pension transfer system that I have use before with another pension. But even Vanguard could not work out what to do about another pension provider that they think should cooperate, but absolutely refuses to do so without any justification that makes any sense to Vanguard or myself. So Vanguard and I are completely up against a brick wall on this one.

@PaulShears have you complained? They must investigate and report their findings. If you don’t accept their findings you can go to the financial ombudsman service. Have they given you a reason?

Yes repeatedly over many years. Complete brick wall with changing long drawn out time frame over the responses. responses.
When I initially tried to move my pension from them back in 1987, they did not even have a fax machine!
I was also professionally advised last year that the Ombudsman would require a great deal of effort over a great deal of time and produce absolutely nothing. So a complete brick wall.

I’m sorry you’re having these problems. When you made a complaint, specifically, what was the response?

I was told that a "manager" would call me. I am convinced that the person that called me was just a supervisor on the help desk. She made a statement, but then she changed her story.
Nothing was in writing. They have never put anything in writing. That is until Vanguard got involved and they finally, after about eight months, told Vanguard that they would not cooperate. Vanguard were at a loss to know what to do about this and so they asked me if we could just drop the whole idea. Very reluctantly I agreed to this as I could not see that this was any fault of Vanguard.
For full disclosure, I had previously transferred another small pension with a different provider to Vanguard without any problem at all.

What I'm getting at, is what was the specific reason you were told they were not transferring? Even if these are multiple and changed? If you make an official complaint and specify you wish to receive a response in writing, they must provide you with their findings. If your proposed investment outperforms your current plan you may get compensation. You may also be compensated for your time and inconvenience.

They did not give a reason beyond saying that they did not allow transfers and following previous attempts to transfer, they took eight months to even say that. They also denied that I ever asked for a transfer value in the past. That's it.

And this is an ordinary DC scheme with no preserved benefits? If so, I’d suggest you complain and ask for a written explanation of the investigation findings.

How old are you OP? Do you have other pension assets?

If you are over 55 you may be able to commute this on the grounds of triviality. And then you could invest the money in a Vanguard fund in an ISA.

I am 69 years old.

It is a final salary scheme and it is, without a shadow of doubt, the worst financial investment that I have EVER made in my life. I have another final salary scheme, which I joined later and was a member of for roughly the same time frame, that would have paid out six times as much if I had drawn it at retirement.

I have a Fidelity SIPP. One of the funds that I have invested in via my SIPP is Vanguard. I have transferred two pensions into my SIPP in the past year (one from Aviva and one from Scottish Widows.) Both transfers were completed very quickly (less than a week).
Both transfers attracted a cash back offer from Fidelity. They have a current cash back offer at the moment.