Mortgage and Investing

[IL-BOSCO]

@Brndete

Regarding affordability, are you concerned about risk and cash-flow in general, or rather the bank’s calculation? If you stick with your current provider, I’m not sure whether they’ll check it again.

It’s more about reducing our obligations and also the refinancing in 5 years.

[Abs_max]

few things to be aware of

• withdrawals for home ownership only allowed once every 5 years
• Once you make voluntary purchases , full pension capital (including all 2nd pillar, VB , 1E etc) gets locked for 3 years for any withdrawals or else taxes need to be paid back.
• Any withdrawal is taxed at lump sum rates (I think this part is known but just mentioning for completeness)
• Maximum voluntary purchases are limited by pension fund plans (different for different companies)
• Maximum withdrawal is limited by age (also mentioned in the pension fund statement)
• Any contributions made after withdrawals are made are not tax free unless you refill everything you withdrew

I think for now these are main things.

Although I see that directionally there is an attempt to tax capital withdrawals at higher rates. So in future this might change and hence people need to be cautious.

[Brndete]

@Quack

Is it possible to make a partial withdrawal to cover the mortgage payments in the meantime

Yes, you can make partial withdrawals. Even makes sense to break the progression on the withdrawal tax vs. all at once. Well, not to cover mortgage payments, but to lower them.

@Quack

how to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of doing voluntary buy ins vs paying off more

It comes down to expected rates and taxes.

You could run a quick calculation based on your mortgage interest and pension return gross, then add income, wealth and withdrawal tax for a net comparison over a 5, 10, 15-year period. Obviously, the longer the time, the lower the annual return of the buy-in gets, but will stay ahead unless the mortgage rate is much higher than the pension fund returns.

[PhilMongoose]

@Brndete

You could run a quick calculation based on your mortgage interest and pension return gross, then add income, wealth and withdrawal tax for a net comparison over a 5, 10, 15-year period. Obviously, the longer the time, the lower the annual return of the buy-in gets, but will stay ahead unless the mortgage rate is much higher than the pension fund returns.

This. If you have a good pension fund and a low mortgage interest rate then, it could be a no-brainer e.g. if you have a long term fixed mortgage at <1% and pension funds >1%, then you can simply fund the pension as it will return more and you have all the tax benefits that come with it on top.