Why choose SSAS Practitioner.com?
- High-quality, personal, innovative service coupled with unbeatable value. Our clients' SSASs are administered with an attention to detail that is second to none.
- Specialist technical support.
- We are completely independently owned and operated with no conflicts of interest. This gives us full flexibility to shape our service around the needs of our clients.
- No set-up or take-over fee. No additional charges.
- Full flexibility to draw benefits in line with current legislation and prompt reaction to changes in legislation.
- Professional indemnity insurance for up to £1m per claim.
- Easy access to all members of staff including directors and decision makers.
- First-class reputation, evidenced by both our existing clients and independent analaysis.
- We never pay any commission to introducers including comparison websites.
- We do not retain a proportion of interest earned on cash holdings within your SSAS. Most providers do.
- Our organic growth, matched by a track record of profitability, has allowed us to invest in service and technology to ensure we continue to provide a bespoke SSAS that exceeds clients’ expectations.
Transparent, competitive Fees
We are a well-established SSAS provider, helping our multitude of happy clients since our establishment in 2009.
We believe many SSAS providers charge unnecessarily high fees by exaggerating the amount of work required and using rather opaque time-cost calculations or complicated fee menus. Our efficient administrative procedures and low overheads allow most SSASs to run for just £1,895 + VAT pa, fully inclusive, with no set-up or take-over fee.
The only additional fees are for additional members (above four), and payment of PAYE (if required).
We believe our fees are by far the most competitive in the market and over a period of time could add thousands of pounds to your pension fund. See the Effect of excessive charges.
Within our flat annual fee we provide all the services required to run a SSAS, which is unique in the marketplace.
If you wish to have your SSAS managed by experts who provide innovative, personalised service without excessive 'time cost' or 'fee menu' charges contact us!
SSAS Practitioner.com separates SSAS management from investment advice. We provide you with truly independent management of your SSAS, ensuring that HMRC rules are complied with, leaving your or your investment adviser free to decide where to invest your funds.
There is no obligation for SSAS members to employ a professional to run their scheme. However, the SSAS rules are very complex. Do you have the experience to run your scheme within the HMRC rules and to maximise the tax relief and other benefits of a SSAS? Non-compliance with HMRC rules can result in a 55% tax charge being implemented on the scheme.
Having a professional run your SSAS is therefore certainly wise, and probably essential. Having a professional whose fees don't reduce your fund value excessively is even wiser!
Comparison of charges of our fees with those traditional SSAS providers.
We are registered with HMRC as a Company Service Provider (number 12587196) and our directors have passed HMRC's 'fit and proper person' test. We are also registered with HMRC as a 'Practitioner' (number 00017124) and with the Information Commissioner as a 'Data Controller' (number Z2068455).
Innovative thinking
Advanced pension planning is included within our annual fee to ensure your scheme operates with maximum tax efficiency.
Here at SSAS Practitioner.com advanced pension planning is regarded as the 'bread and butter' of SSASs, as are buying and selling property and making contributions. Unlike many traditional SSAS providers we don’t claim these issues are so time consuming that they merit charging extra fees.
We do not provide investment advice and therefore have no sales agenda with our SSAS clients. We simply tell you what is allowable and what is not in terms of SSAS investments. We do not endorse any investment products for commission purposes.
We liaise with the providers of any allowable investments you wish to make and set up the investment as quickly and efficiently as possible (we advise you to speak to an authorised individual before making investment decisions).
Our administration service ensures that full tax relief is received and that the scheme is guaranteed to stay tax exempt, as long as you heed our advice.
Efficient administration of your SSAS
HMRC require a SSAS to be run by either an administrator or a practitioner. We operate as a practitioner for your SSAS so that you, the client, remain as administrator and trustee (see below). We believe this to be the most efficient way of running your SSAS, as you remain fully in control.
As practitioner:
We are not co-trustees of the scheme and are not signatories to the scheme’s investments. We believe this ensures a more rapid and efficient investment process.
We never handle client money in any form.
We do not promote any investment service providers or their products. We are therefore completely impartial and merely advise whether an investment is acceptable for a SSAS.
We are liable for information submitted to HMRC on behalf of the scheme.
As administrator, you sign unilaterally for each scheme transaction after checking with us what is and is not possible.
We review the scheme's accounts periodically to ensure that it adheres to HMRC legislation and keeps the SSAS's tax-efficient wrapper intact.
It is our responsibility to inform HMRC of any breaches of their rules.
A unique aspect of SSASs is that you, as the client, can be a designated trustee of your own pension scheme, thus this giving you an extra element of control and peace of mind over your pension assets.
Under our platform, one of the trustees, or the 'Sponsoring Employer', would be the 'Scheme Administrator' with HMRC. The Scheme Administrator is registered with HMRC as the person legally responsible for the scheme. Therefore, if the scheme was to make any unauthorised payments or investments, the Scheme Administrator would be liable for the tax bill. We provide guidelines as to what is acceptable. The Scheme Administrator needs to be a fit and proper person in HMRC's eyes. Under our SSAS the trustees are the sole signatories to the pension's investments. You need to ensure that all pension monies and investments are kept within the pensions wrapper. We will not be responsible for any tax charges resulting from unauthorised investments or payments made by the trustees. We do not provide tax advice. As practitioner we run the scheme on behalf of the Scheme Administrator.
What your current SSAS provider will claim to try and keep your business
Many SSAS providers run SSASs as Administrators and are 'Corporate Trustees'. They claim the moral high ground over practitioners as they are co-signatories on the scheme's assets. Therefore, they need to sign and oversee every transaction on your scheme under the pretense of making sure the scheme abides by HMRC's rules before often charging you handsomely. In practice, this reduces the efficient administration of your SSAS as it increases the time involved and hence their fees. We believe by acting as practitioner we can advise you what can and can't be done within the rules, you then sign unilaterally for transactions and take control of your fund.
Efficient, stress-free take-over from your existing provider
The take-over process should not take more than four weeks and we make it entirely stress-free for you, the client.
The take-over process is very straightforward
We obtain a copy of the current Trust Deed and Rules, together with a list of the scheme's investments, from your current provider.
We prepare a Deed of Removal for the scheme, effectively removing the former corporate trustee.
The new Deed is signed by the member trustees and we issue copies to all the investment providers.
We notify the changes to the relevant banks, investment companies, HMRC and where appropriate the Pension Regulator and the Information Commissioner's Office.
We provide a review of the scheme and provide you with a full information pack for your scheme, including an up-to-date valuation and retirement projection.
We send a report to the trustees of the work we have undertaken, and an invoice for our annual fee (£1,895 + VAT pa).
What if we were to cease trading?
This is highly unlikely given the popularity of our fully inclusive flat-fee model, but is a question we have been asked by some of our clients. You control the money in your SSAS. As trustees you are signatories to the scheme's bank accounts and investments. We are not signatories to your scheme, therefore if we were to cease trading this would have no effect on your scheme; we are not 'co-signatures' to any of your scheme's investments. You would simply go ahead and appoint another practitioner to run your scheme.
Use our calculator to see how your existing SSAS provider's excessive charges are eroding your hard-earned pension fund.
You should seek independent financial advice before setting up a SSAS, transferring in existing policies or making contributions and investments.
The value of investments held within a SSAS pension scheme can fall as well as rise.
Our industry-beating service standards
SSAS Practitioner.com Limited are dedicated to providing excellent customer service to our clients. This is shown by our quick turnaround of queries and review of the accompanying paperwork to facilitate transactions.
Assuming all information and the required authorisation has been provided, we commit to process payments within 24 hours and approve investments within 48 hours. We recognise the necessity of this level of service when important deadlines are encountered to register a scheme or acquire an investment.
We act as Practitioner to the scheme and we are not a trustee so do not co-hold the scheme’s assets. Clients experience the benefit of this. As we are not trustees we are not required to sign scheme paperwork, saving time. This is especially important when paperwork is circulated between parties, for example between solicitors and trustees. We do of course require sight of documentation that our clients will sign as trustees. We will thoroughly scrutinise this to ensure that the scheme is run in a HMRC compliant manner.
We commit to complete 97% of our work to the service standards shown below.
| New business | |
| Issue applications | 1 working day |
| Process applications (issuing deeds and bank-opening paperwork) | 1 working day |
| Banking | |
| Processing cheques | 1 working day |
| Authorising bank transfers | 1 working day |
| Recording money in | 1 working day |
| Transfers | |
| Processing transfers in/out of scheme | 3 working days* |
Transfer in-specie's may take longer to process due to the nature of these investments. We reserve the right to request more information to satisfy our due diligence and protect you when transferring.
| Investments | |
| Review of proposed investment | 3 working days |
| Process new investment | 1 working day |
| Amendment to existing investment | 1 working day |
| Benefits | |
|
Process requests *subject to a valuation of the scheme and sufficient funds being available |
3 working days* |
|
Paying PCLS **assuming calculation has been completed and funds are available |
1 working day** |
|
Drawdown payments ***assuming funds are available and payroll has been established |
2 working days*** |
| Note: Drawdown payments can be paid throughout the month and not just on a specific day |
| Correspondence | |
| Urgent correspondence | 3 working days |
| General correspondence | 5 working days |
