Getting a QNUPS can be exciting. After all, you have worked for years to build up some assets that you want to pass on to your children or grandchildren, and a QNUPS will allow you to do this.
But how can you choose between the ones on offer?
A proper QNUPS
Firstly, you need to make sure that the scheme into which you are about to transfer your assets is a proper QNUPS that meets HMRC’s criteria for this. After all, if your overseas pension scheme fails to meet the criteria then you run the risk of your assets becoming chargeable to IHT after your death – when it is far too late to do anything about it!
QNUPS must be recognised as pensions in their own country, but they must also meet HMRC’s strict criteria. It is not enough to simply pick a foreign pension and hope that it will be exempt from UK IHT.
Outside its own country’s IHT system
If the point of the transfer is to make the pension exempt from IHT, then it would be a mistake to pick a QNUPS that falls within its own country’s IHT net. Yet if you choose a QROPS without proper advice, this is what may happen.
Check what you can put into the QNUPS
What can a QNUPS accept? To a nation of investors who are still hooked on property despite the recession, UK investors will be pleased to learn that residential property can be put into a QNUPS, although not the house that is your main place of residence.
There has also been lots of publicity about the diversity of non-traditional assets that you can put into a QNUPS. Fine wines and antiques could be possible investments, which may be slightly easier to get excited about than dry subjects like bonds and shares.
How much will it cost?
Finally, this is an important issue to be sorted out before you pick your QNUPS. However much your QNUPS fees are, make sure that the fee structure is transparent.
