Retirement Age and Pension Age

Retirement age will depend on the pension holder and the pension scheme they hold. For instance, many employers have a specific retirement age listed in their contracts. Compulsory retirement age is becoming less common, and are unlawful unless it can be justified.However, there is a national default retirement age of 65. This allows for mandatory retirement over this age, so long as employees have the right to request working beyond retirement age.

Pension age, sometimes abbreviated toNormal Pension Age (NPA), depends on your pension scheme. This refers to the age at which the employee can draw their pension without losing any benefits.

Retirement Age and claiming the state pension

You can retire at any age, but you can only claim State Pension when you reach State Pension Age. State pension age has changed for anyone who was born between1955 to 1960 it has now increased to age 66, if you were born in 1961 it will change again to 66 years and so many months depending on your birth month. For those born between 1962 to 1977 it will increase to 67 years and those born from1978 it will increase again to age 68. If you would like to check your state pension age click this link: https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-age

Retirement Age and claiming company or personal pension

At this stage, the earliest one can claim a company or personal pension is 55, this will be increasing to age 57 in2028.

Ill-health and pension age

If you have serious ill-health resulting in life expectancy of less than a year, you may retire at any age taking 100% of pensions as a tax-free lump sum if you are age 75 or under. If you’re over the age of 75 the lump sum will be taxed at your marginal rate of income tax.

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