Trustees are currently being abandoned by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) when dealing with pension liberation issues according to Broadstone.

Warnings of pension liberation scams have intensified recently after the regulator stated that such scams have seen middle aged people lose an estimated £400m from their pension funds since 2008.

However, Broadstone pensions director John Newman accused the regulator of not doing enough to help trustees. “Trustees want to be able to say no to a transfer, where they believe that it is going to be a pension liberation arrangement, and have the support of the regulator. Trustees and the regulator have a joint objective to protect the benefits of members. It appears that, in this instance, the regulator is passing all of this joint responsibility to just one party, the trustees.”

He added: “Warning members of pensions liberation and that the transfer may not be in their interest is one thing, but where trustees have a good reason to believe that a transfer may lead to pensions liberation they must have the power to prevent it. This must be supported by clear advice from The Pensions Regulator. HMRC and the regulator should then be referred to arbitrate on whether the transfer is bona fide or not.”

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