Starting a SIPP - pension sharing order

[Didsomeonesaydogs]

I am self employed and I have been hearing good things about the vanguard sipp.

STBXH and I have agreed on a pension split so my question is this:

Do I need to get the sipp up and running before my divorce pension sharing order is actioned or can the sipp be set up as part of the transfer process?

I have another pension with Scottish widows that I could transfer over to them to get it started so maybe that would make the process easier.

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice anyone has!

I would invest some time in looking at all the major Sipp providers.
Vanguard are good but they are not the cheapest for people with larger pots because they charge a percentage fee for use of their platform 0.15% if memory serves.
So if the pot is approaching £100000 or more a flat fee broker would be best, Interactive Investor would be one option.
Also Vanguard have a limited range of funds where as the other platforms will have way more choice.
If your are not sure what you are doing when it comes to picking funds a start would be a some kind if multi asset fund with different risk variants.
It's very important to do some homework before making any investment, lots of good info out there the meaningful money podcast and Monevator blog are good.

@Bucks67 thank you so much for taking the time to respond with such super helpful info. I will definitely check out those resources you mentioned. I do listen to MM podcast, so I’ll do a search on there for SIPP stuff.

You can always call vanguard and answer other sipp companies to discuss how the process works. You will need to che k if your SW pension has any guarantees or protections before transferring, as you might end up worse off. Also, you can transfer again, so if you don't like who you go with, it is possible to move for a better fit.

I had to set up a SIPP as a result of a pension sharing order on divorce. In the end I worked with an IFA on this who was recommended by a friend (happy to share his details via a dm if you'd like).

Main reason was it became so hard and I couldn't properly proceed by myself.

It is probably better to do all your research and take control yourself, but at the time I didn't have much bandwidth so it was quite good having the IFA.