Moving funds into a living annuity upon maturity

QUESTION:

I will be retiring at the end of this year, and the advice is that I should transfer my funds to a living annuity, which will pay a monthly amount for my lifetime.
I am not sure that this is shariah compliant and would please like advice on this.

ANSWER:

We assume that you have a provident fund with your current employer. If all the funds (from the provident fund) will be paid out to you upon retirement, then you should move the funds into an interest-free banking account, where you will have complete access to the funds. You may then use the funds according to your needs. On the other hand, if you are only permitted to withdraw one third of the funds upon maturity and required to re-invest the remaining two thirds as per government regulation, then you may invest the two-thirds into a living annuity. However, in this instance you shouldn’t utilize more than the invested two-thirds. In other words, if you invested one million Rand, then you are not permitted to use more than a million Rand.

ALLAH TA’ALA ALONE IN HIS INFINITE KNOWLEDGE KNOWS BEST!

ANSWERED BY:

Mufti Mohammed Desai

Date:- 17 Muharram 1445 / 05 August 2023