The Personal and Occupational Pension Schemes (Protected Rights) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997

Suspension and forfeiture of payments giving effect to protected rights

9.—(1) For the purposes of section 28, the circumstances in which the rules of a scheme may provide for payments giving effect to a member’s protected rights to be suspended are—

(a) that the person who is entitled to payments giving effect to those rights is, in the opinion of the trustees or managers of the scheme, unable to act by reason of mental disorder or otherwise, so however that there is provision in the scheme for equivalent sums to be paid or applied, while that person is so unable, for the maintenance of that person or, at the discretion of the trustees or managers, of that person together with his dependants or of his dependants only, and, to the extent that they are not so applied, to be held for that person until he is again able to act or, as the case may be, for his estate;

(b) that that person is undergoing a period of imprisonment or detention in legal custody, so however that there is provision in the scheme for equivalent sums to be paid or applied during such a period for the maintenance of such one or more of that person’s dependants as the trustees or managers of the scheme may in their discretion determine.

(2) For the purposes of section 28, the circumstances in which the rules of a scheme may provide for a payment giving effect to a member’s protected rights to be forfeited are—

(a) that the trustees or managers of the scheme do not know the address of the person to whom the payment should be made; and

(b) that a period of at least 6 years has elapsed from the date on which that payment became due.