Have the pension paperwork ready before your family is asked for it.
From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds count towards the value of an estate. That makes finding and valuing every pension somebody else’s job — usually your executor’s. This page is about that paperwork, not about your tax position.
This is general information about getting organised, not tax or financial advice — speak to a regulated adviser.
What changes
From 6 April 2027, the estate paperwork includes your pensions
HMRC’s change, set out on GOV.UK.
What the rule does
From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and pension death benefits are counted within the value of a person’s estate for inheritance tax. Some benefits — certain death-in-service payments and some dependants’ scheme pensions — are expected to stay outside it. That is HMRC’s change, set out on GOV.UK. What it means for any particular estate depends on the whole picture, and that is a question for a regulated adviser, not for us.
“It is with the pension company” stops being an answer
That has been the standard reassurance for years, and until now it has mostly held: the provider paid out, and the estate paperwork barely touched it. From April 2027 somebody has to name every scheme, reach the right provider, and get a value for each pot as at the date of death before the estate can be reported. “It is with the pension company” only helps if somebody knows which company.
The pots that go missing are the old ones
A workplace pension from three jobs ago is exactly the kind of thing nobody thinks to look for. A Gretel estimate puts around £50bn in lost and forgotten accounts across the UK, pensions among them — an industry estimate, not an official statistic. You almost certainly know where yours are. The point of writing it down is that the knowledge is currently only in your head.
No deadline for you
The date belongs to the rule, not to you
6 April 2027 is when the paperwork changes for the people sorting out an estate. It is not a deadline you have to beat, and nothing on this page gets worse if you do it in a month instead of this weekend. One pot at a time is a perfectly good pace.
What the paperwork will ask for
Six details, for every pension you hold
Not the tax treatment — the identifying details. These are what somebody has to be able to answer, per pot, before an estate can be reported.
The provider
The scheme or company that actually holds the money — not the employer you worked for, which may have changed hands twice since you left.
The policy or member number
The reference the provider asks for on the phone before they will discuss anything. It is printed on the annual statement.
What kind of pension it is
Workplace, personal, SIPP, or a defined-benefit scheme. They are administered differently, valued differently, and asked about differently.
A value, and where the last statement is
The provider produces the date-of-death value; nobody expects you to. What helps is a last known value and a pointer to the statement, so nobody is left guessing whether a scheme still exists at all.
The beneficiary nomination, and when you last looked at it
The expression of wish you have lodged with the provider. Record that it exists and the date you last checked it. Nominations left behind by a divorce or a remarriage are one of the most common problems here, and one of the simplest to put right.
Who to ring
The scheme administrator’s number, and your financial adviser if you have one. Beqst is not an adviser; this is simply the contact your executor would otherwise spend a fortnight hunting for.
What records to keep
Four documents per pension. Nothing else.
You are not building an archive. You are making sure each pot can be identified and reached.
- The most recent annual statement — it carries the provider, the reference and a value on one page.
- The confirmation of your beneficiary nomination, with the date on it.
- Any transfer or consolidation letter, so a closed scheme can be traced to whichever provider took it over.
- For a defined-benefit scheme, the member booklet — it sets out what a survivor is entitled to ask for.
- And a note of where each of those is kept. A list that points at a drawer beats a drawer nobody knows about.
Free checklist
Start with the checklist
Add your email and we will send it over — a clean PDF with a pension section you can fill in one pot at a time. Free, and it stays free. We will send occasional, genuinely useful updates too (no spam, unsubscribe anytime).
Kept safe
Policy numbers, properly protected
Pension references and provider details are worth protecting. If you keep them in Beqst, passwords and other selected high-risk details are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before they are stored, and you decide exactly what your executor can see after you die.
Related reading
More on the 2027 change and the admin around it
Plain-English guides, with the sources named.
The 2027 pension change, answered plainly
This is general information about getting organised, not tax or financial advice — speak to a regulated adviser.