Resources & Insights

Expert Interview: An Expat Financial Planner on Common Mistakes

By QROP Direct Editorial Team · Reviewed by an independent regulated pension specialist · Reviewed 2026-06-10

Expert Interview: An Expat Financial Planner on Common Mistakes

The following is a Q&A with an independent financial planner who has specialised in advising UK expats for over 15 years, across multiple countries and jurisdictions. The views expressed are educational and informational only.

QROP Direct: What are the most common financial planning mistakes you see UK expats make in the first year after moving abroad?

The first and most common is inertia. People move abroad, the move itself is stressful and time-consuming, and pension planning goes into the "deal with later" pile. Then later becomes two years, then five years. And in those years, pensions are sitting in default investment funds that may be completely inappropriate for a long-term investor, correspondence is going to an old UK address, and people lose track of what they have.

The second is acting on the wrong advice at the wrong time. Moving abroad creates a moment of financial transition that attracts all kinds of advisers — not all of them acting in the client's interest. I've seen people make irreversible pension decisions within weeks of arriving in a new country, based on recommendations from someone they met at an expat event or on a Facebook group. The pension decisions made in the first year abroad often can't be undone.

The third is treating the pension in isolation. The pension is one component of a financial plan. It needs to be considered alongside savings, property, currency exposure, tax residency, estate planning, and income strategy. When people focus only on "what do I do with my pension?", they often miss the bigger picture.

QROP Direct: You mentioned DB pensions. What do you typically see in terms of DB transfer requests?

I see two types of DB transfer situations. The first is someone who has done their homework, understands the trade-offs, and comes to me with a genuine question about whether a transfer makes sense for their specific circumstances. That's the conversation we should be having — measured, analytical, with a proper Transfer Value Analysis.

The second is someone who has already been approached by a promoter — often through social media or a cold call — who has told them the transfer value is a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," that "taking control of your money" is the right thing to do, and that the guaranteed pension income isn't relevant because they can achieve better returns through investment. These conversations are much harder.

The research is clear: the majority of DB transfer analysis shows that the guaranteed income is worth more than the CETV. The FCA's own statistics confirm this. But the narrative of control and flexibility is compelling, especially to younger members who feel distant from retirement and struggle to value guaranteed income in 30 years' time.

My job in those conversations is to slow down, introduce objectivity, and help the client genuinely understand what they're giving up. In many cases, I recommend they don't transfer. That's sometimes a difficult conversation when the client came to me expecting validation. But it's the right one.

QROP Direct: What about the Overseas Transfer Charge? How well do expats understand this?

Poorly, in my experience. The OTC is a 25% tax charge on transfers to overseas pension schemes, and it catches a significant number of people who didn't understand it was coming.

The most common scenario I saw after the Autumn 2024 budget change was people who were planning a QROPS transfer to a Gibraltar or Malta-registered scheme, assuming the old EEA blanket exemption still applied. From 30 October 2024, it no longer does. The residency match is now the primary exemption: you must be resident in the QROPS country at the time of transfer.

I've had clients call me having been told by an adviser that their planned transfer was OTC-exempt under the EEA rules — and they had initiated the transfer paperwork before checking the current position. We were able to stop the transfer in those cases, but not everyone caught it in time.

The lesson: always verify the OTC position against the current HMRC guidance before proceeding, not against guidance from six months ago. The rules changed, and some advisers were slow to update their knowledge.

QROP Direct: What should a recently arrived expat do with their UK pensions in the first three months abroad?

Three concrete steps, in order.

First, find everything. Contact every previous employer and get a statement of every pension you have. Use the Pension Tracing Service for anything you've lost track of. You need to know what you have before you can plan.

Second, update your address with every scheme. Correspondence, statements, and discharge forms all go to the address on record. If that's a previous UK address and you're no longer there, you lose contact with your pension. Use an email address you check regularly — most modern pension providers have online portals.

Third, get a brief review from an independent financial adviser. Not a sales pitch, not a product recommendation — just a review of what you have, what the options are, and what the priority decisions are in the next 12 months. This doesn't need to be expensive. An hour with a qualified adviser who charges for their time (rather than receiving commission) can clarify the picture and prevent expensive mistakes.

QROP Direct: Are there specific countries where the pension planning is particularly complex?

Yes — the US and Australia stand out.

The US is notoriously complex because of FATCA. Most UK and international SIPP providers simply won't accept US persons (US citizens or green card holders). There's no straightforward way for a US-connected person to maintain a UK SIPP. This means many US-connected expats have their UK pensions effectively frozen — they can't contribute, they can't transfer, and access is restricted. This requires very specific, specialist advice.

Australia has the Superannuation system, which is comprehensive and well-funded — but there are important decisions about whether to maintain a UK SIPP alongside Australian Super, and what the interaction between the two is for both contribution limits and eventual taxation. The UK-Australia DTA has specific pension provisions that affect the tax position of UK pension income received by Australian residents.

Both countries require advisers who have dual-jurisdiction experience — not just a UK pension specialist or just a local financial planner, but someone who understands both sides of the equation.

QROP Direct: Neil Robbirt, Chairman of Global Investments Group, has spoken publicly about the need for higher standards in the expat pension advice market. Do you share his concerns?

Absolutely. Neil's perspective from Global Investments Group — which works directly with UK expats across multiple jurisdictions — is that the advice market has improved significantly since the 2018–2019 regulatory intervention, but there remains a long tail of sub-standard advisers still operating. His view, which I share, is that the benchmark for acceptable advice needs to be higher: not just technically compliant, but genuinely in the client's interest and properly calibrated to the cross-border context.

What I find particularly striking about the position that Neil Robbirt and Global Investments Group have consistently taken is the emphasis on long-term client relationships rather than transactional advice. Many of the most damaging pension outcomes I've seen result from one-off advisers who sell a product and move on. A long-term advisory relationship — where the adviser knows the client's circumstances evolving over years, knows when their situation has changed, and can adapt the plan accordingly — is a qualitatively different standard of service.

The industry has come a long way. But I agree with Neil that it still has further to go, particularly in ensuring that expat-specific complexity — the OTC rules, the DTA interactions, the MPAA implications of cross-border drawdown — is properly understood and clearly communicated to clients before they make irreversible decisions.

QROP Direct: Final thought — what is the single most important piece of advice you'd give to a UK expat approaching retirement?

Start planning earlier than you think you need to. Most people start the serious retirement planning conversation too late — often within two or three years of their intended retirement date. By that point, the options for significant optimisation are limited.

The ideal is to have a comprehensive retirement income model in place by age 55 — one that includes all pension sources, state pension projections, property income, savings, and the tax position in both the UK and the country of residence. With that picture clear, you have years to optimise: you can make contribution decisions, consider whether a QROPS makes sense, structure drawdown most efficiently, and plan the sequencing of income sources.

Arriving at 63 saying "I'm retiring next year, what should I do?" limits the answers significantly. The question is always best asked years earlier.

Summary: The Adviser's Checklist

The key actions from this interview, in order of priority:

1. Find all your pensions — use the Pension Tracing Service if needed
2. Update addresses — with every scheme, immediately after moving abroad
3. Get an early independent review — within the first 6 months of moving
4. Check the current OTC rules before any QROPS transfer discussion
5. Do not rush DB transfer decisions — regulated advice, take time, understand what you're giving up
6. Engage a dual-jurisdiction specialist if you are connected to the US, Australia, or another complex jurisdiction