Regarding the award of £1,000 payment by St James’s Place Wealth Management to its customer (FTAdviser.com, 17 Nov), what on earth is the adjudicator doing even awarding £1,000?
The FCA and Treasury take note for FAMR. Is it any wonder that advisers are unwilling to provide advice to the less wealthy, who do not want to pay much, if at all, for advice, when they can be sued for trying to do the right thing?
On top of this, there is no longstop to protect them, and we have an ombudsman service which makes awards like this because an adviser did not discuss every detail or potential detail of something that may or not be an issue in the future.
I would have thought it reasonable to give a paragraph about the lifetime allowance in a report rather than a lengthy discussion about whether it will or it will not be an issue, depending upon continued pension contributions, fund performance, rules and regulation changes, and retirement age. How many of us sit in front of a client and start to talk about the possible restrictions there may be 20 years down the road only to have the client say: “That’s a long way off”? The FCA wanted evidence of an unreasonable Fos and here we have it. Yes, they have said there is no evidence of an actual loss, but they still upheld the complaint, which should have been tossed out upon receipt. I hope SJP seeks a review for the sake of all advisers. If the lifetime allowance is scrapped in the future, the client will probably go back in a few years and sue because he has not built up sufficient funds to pass outside his estate to his children and he should have been advised by SJP to keep the contributions going, and not to be so stupid.
Last one out of the industry, please turn off the light.
Chris Burden
Financial adviser,
RDS Financial,
Farnham,
Surrey
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