Sipp and SSAS firm reaches property investment milestone

Xafinity has reported a milestone in its commercial property investments for its SSAS and Sipp clients. The firm has confirmed it has made its 1,500th commercial property investment.The total value of these properties and land administered by Xafinity exceeds £560m, or around £370k per property.Earlier this year Xafinity reported a 43% increase in property purchases in 2013 over 2012.The firm said this indicates a strong and growing understanding of the benefits to SMEs and the self-employed of owning their business premises within their pension scheme. Around 80% of Xafinity's property portfolio is owner occupied properties.{desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}Jeff Steedman, head of Sipp & SSAS business development at Xafinity, said: "We continue to see high levels of activity in the Sipp/SSAS market with property investment remaining a firm favourite with the directors of SMEs and some smaller self-employed clients."Using their pension fund to buy the business premises often frees up other cash to invest in other parts of their business or reduce existing borrowing."We are seeing all sorts of commercial property being bought by Sipp and SSAS, including high street shops, nursing homes, children's nurseries, vet practices as well as the traditional industrial units, factories and offices."There are also a number of clients selling land to their SIPPs and applying for residential planning permission."He said the firm aims to get the message out to the business community on the flexibility that a Sipp or SSAS can offer companies.He said: "There are thousands of directors of SMEs out there who don't even know that their pension fund could buy the company premises."It is up to financial advisers, accountants, solicitors and other professionals to review their clients' pensions at regular intervals and explore ways in which pensions can "self invest" into their company to both make a sound pension investment and potentially improve the company cash flow."We are also seeing increased activity in the 'second hand' Sipp market where clients and advisers are at the end of their tether with poor administration support from their existing providers."Xafinity also has a pipeline of a further 70 properties which are expected to complete shortly. It said many of these are transfers from other providers where clients are unhappy with the service levels and technical support being provided.

Sipp and SSAS firm reaches property investment milestone

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