I found it relatively straightforward to get 25% cash free sum from my largest pension (Scottish widows). It took a while but the multi stage process was clearly explained so fair enoufh . Cleared the remaining mortgage and bought ISAs and lived off it for a bit. The realised it also made sense to annually pay myself £12750 or whatever as pension as that too is then tax free, even though I didn't quite need the money at the time. Subsequently took 25% from an older pension (L&G)too, though that seemed a lot more of a rigmarole as if they didn't want to let people do it without an IFA. "Can't payout as you've quoted the wrong figure for the other pension's 25%". "what is it supposed to be?" "we're not telling you and we won't let you talk to the team who've worked it out". Their instructions were totally misleading leading to my wrong calculation. I was more or less at the point my next call would have been the FSA, but we got there, albeit painfully.
As someone mentioned, the pension bit was originally taxed but I got it back the next year. Now I'm getting it monthly it is no longer taxed if that makes sense as HMRC have caught up
