The British Treasury, in a surprise move, abandoned plans to allow residential property and exotic investments such as fine wine and art in personal pension plans, leaving many investors and financial advisers disappointed.

The financial-services industry was looking forward to the expansion planned for the British personal retirement savings accounts, which were designed to give tax incentives for a range of investments including wine, residential property, art and antiques, stamp collections and classic cars in addition to stocks, bonds and mutual funds. The law was supposed to take effect April 6, which the British government dubbed "A-Day," but the Treasury revised the proposal and removed the tax advantages for investing in residential property, fine wines, classic cars, stamp collections and art and antiques.

"People who moved their assets into Sipps [self-invested personal pensions] in the expectation this expansion would come through might feel aggrieved," said David Fairs, a pensions partner at KPMG in London. "It's a shame; it was going to be one of those things that would make people more interested in pensions and savings. Pensions will go back to being boring."

Mr. Fairs said the government found it was going to be too difficult to police or regulate the more-creative types of pension investments. If an investor had bought fine wine for his pension fund, he would have to pay the fund the market price for any bottle he decided to drink. In the case of a vacation home placed in the pension fund, the owner would have to pay market rent to the pension any time he used the property. An art investment would have been even more difficult. An owner wouldn't be able to enjoy the art by placing it in his home without paying a fee to the pension fund for the privilege.

A spokesman for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs said the change "is to make sure people don't abuse the privilege and use the Sipps for the purposes intended."