Lost Pension

Hi

I’m not sure if anyone may be able to direct me where to go with this one but any advice is more than appreciated. My client has 2 occ pensions. One of which he is receiving the other one he says is lost. He has tried to trace it through the Pension Advice Service but he was told they couldn’t trace it. The Pension relates to one of two companies where he used to work in the 1990’s but he can’t remember which company it was, although he has both names of the companies albeit they have since transferred to different companies (the original company no longer exists.) He has also moved many times since the 1990’s. Does anyone know if he will have a chance of trying to recover this missing pension? Thanks

If he’s already tried this:
https://www.gov.uk/find-lost-pension

.. was he in a union who might have records?

Hi Jon, thanks for your response. He already told me he had used the pension tracing service but they were unable to find it. I’ll check if he was in a union but he was vague about the details of his pensions so I’m not holding out much hope : (

If the company had an occupational pension scheme, the ownership of that scheme would have transferred when it was sold. Therefore it should be possible to contact the pension administrators of the company who took over the old one. They should have complete records. With NiNO/dates he worked etc it shouldn’t be too difficult to find, if there is one. You should encourage him to find letters he may have too, as his scheme number may be listed.

Shazz - 11 November 2015 11:34 AM

Hi

The Pension relates to one of two companies where he used to work in the 1990’s but he can’t remember which company it was, although he has both names of the companies albeit they have since transferred to different companies (the original company no longer exists.)

if you know the names of the original companies, they can be traced through companies house
http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk//wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo

once you know the correct name, it’s company number will appear and any subsequent names using that number…

if either still exists - whether as active or in liquidation - you can write to it about its pension scheme.

“transferred to different companies” can mean a number of things

1. that the shares were sold to another company - in which case the company will stil be there, possibly under a different name but still the same number
2. that it’s assets etc were sold and the original company dissolved - harder to trace, but google can be your friend there…..google the original company name and you may find info of it being sold to whoever it was sold to… and you can then write to the purchaser.

HTH