Withdrawing pension money as a POA to gift to son
GolfPutt21
Member
Hi all,
I have had a client who is POA for their mum who holds a pension that she has never drawn benefits from. The beneficiaries of her pension are her 5 grandchildren and she has previously stated she is likely never to need to draw from the pension.
The POA has contacted me to ask if she can withdraw some money from the pension to gift to her own son (clients grandchild) who is one of the beneficiaries for him to use towards a house purchase and then remove him as a beneficiary of the pension.
I was curious to know what peoples thoughts on this would be, obviously I am very cautious of this as there are obvious gifting implications and knock on effects of this. My initial thought is that the POA should refer to the court of protection for this.
Interested to know how people would view this?
Comments
Attorneys cannot gift (other than small gifts on special occasions like birthdays or Christmas). This is confirmed by Government guidance (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/giving-gifts).
If this is for IHT planning, the attorney will need to go through the Court of Protection (COP).
The above assumes the donor has lost mental capacity. Obviously, if the mother still has mental capacity, then you could proceed without the attorney.
It needs to go through court regardless of the reason for the gift (IHT planning or not). IHT planning has the conflict of interest aspect as well as the giftighn aspect).
If she has capacity just crack on as you say.