A Guide To Retirement With Lester Bennett

Phasing retirement in incremental steps may be the most easy-to-manage approach. Lester Bennett - a past president of the BIID (2020-2021) – has 40 years in the industry, having worked as director and partner in several practices (high end residential, commercial, retail and industrial) as well as a sole trader. Here he shares insights from winding down his career.  

“Easing the transition to retirement should be a well-considered strategy. Winding down gradually is the best, I believe, allowing one to adjust to not being continually committed to deadlines.

My own exit strategy was rather dictated by personal circumstances. Prior to 2015 I had many years working in partnership but when my wife became ill, my 15-hours-per-week commute was no longer tenable.  I was 65 and semi-retirement seemed a sensible option so I decided to return to sole trader status and work from home. My partners were supportive and happy for me to take the clients I had brought into the business which meant I was still busy but had greater freedom and balance.

By 2020 when Covid hit, I had already considered winding down but I hadn’t taken steps other than to accept fewer commissions. Lockdown suspended most projects and several did not resume leaving me with about 50-60% of my previous workload. It seemed a good time to plan to retire once the remaining projects were finished.

Financial considerations

I had help in preparation from my accountant and financial planners. If finance isn’t your strong point then it's a wise thing to do so that you can plan effectively and prepare for future hidden costs /tax payments/vat etc. As projects wind down so does your income and this balancing act is significant, particularly if you have a team of people you are responsible for and need to pay staff salaries, and any bonuses you think are due, alongside planning for redundancy costs. 
As we know, construction is notorious for delays. If you are responsible for procurement and installation of FF&E, these delays may incur storage and other costs beyond your control and eat into your retirement strategy programme.

Professional indemnity 

On close of practice you should obtain ‘run-off’ cover from your insurers. This is not always straightforward as, like me, you may have one or two live projects remaining to be completed.. I negotiated with my insurers to give me run-off on all but the live projects, ensuring a lesser premium for run-off but covering me for risk on the remaining live projects.

Other considerations

• Check the terms of a lease, if you have one, reassigning it, if possible, or alternatively plan to retire at the end date of the lease.
• 'This is obvious but not easy! Calculate as best you can that you have ample savings/investments/pensions to carry you throughout retirement, particularly as we live in such turbulent financial times.

Cautionary thoughts

If you decide to retire slightly earlier than you need to, I advise making every effort to keep up to date with legislation and working practices. It only takes a short period before your knowledge of building regs, fire safety and planning etc starts to drain away. If, for any reason, you needed to step back into the industry your design skills might still be current but you would almost certainly face a huge amount of legislation to catch up on.

The future

Retirement is the time to develop other strong interests and indulge in passions that work commitments didn’t allow. Something creative for sure!  I'm been a musician all my life and now spend time recording, playing gigs and working on musical projects. 

It's good to give back, the profession has given me a long and enjoyable career and it’s great to help up-and-coming designers, they are our future! Together with Charles Leon, another BIID Past President, I lead workshops in hand sketching for the Institute and enjoy involvement with various other institute activities. It’s also good to use your skills to help your local community, for instance, I’m helping design the cricket club interiors!”
 

You can read the first part in this series here.