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The network has published a white paper Taking the Long View, that calls for the City watchdog to include such provisions to bring the financial services industry in line with other civil complaints.

Sesame believes such a move would be pivotal to the future sustainability and growth of the financial advice profession.

While the law states a civil action complaint should be brought to the courts within 15 years this limitation does not currently apply to complaints about the financial services industry, due to rules set out in the FSA's Financial Services and Markets Act and the Consumer Credit Act 2000.

In its policy statement published in January 2003, the FSA said: "We do not consider it is in the interests of consumers to rule out the possibility of complaints being dealt with outside the 15-year period that would apply to court cases.

"Nor do we consider this necessary to prevent hardship to firms."

However Sesame said the fact such liability is held indefinitely by those operating in the financial services sector was of great detriment to the industry.

Stephen Young, sales and marketing director for Sesame, said: "This is not to diminish this issue for the people who could potentially be affected by the introduction of a long-stop time limit, but we believe every profession has to deal with this reality and no industry or market can de-risk itself completely.

"While we are not suggesting complaints will ever become a thing of the past, we do believe greater professional standards will lead to changing trends in the adviser/client relationship that do in turn warrant a regulatory dividend for our profession."

The fundamental basis of Sesame's case is that within the proposed 15-year period, the client should have received at least one annual policy statement.

As part of this wider consumer debate, regular and clear client communications are an important consideration in ensuring that people are armed with the necessary information about the products they have purchased, Sesame said.

Mr Young said if the regulator did not believe this was the case, then the quality of post-sale information from product providers would need to be examined further.

Jared Aitken, media relations manager for Sesame, said: "It is a dehabilitating factor for advisers and for the industry as a whole. It puts people off coming into the industry and investing in the industry because this liability sits on their books for all this time.

"We would like to see proposals and solutions that address this in the retail distribution review. What we are arguing for is for a 15-year long stop to be introduced to enable advisers to cap their liabilities and help plan future investments."

Adam Richards-Gray, press officer for the FSA, said the City watchdog had not yet been able to find a case for a 15-year limitation after which consumers could no longer call for compensation from the financial services industry.

He pointed to the RDR interim report, published in April, and said: "To justify a long-stop we will have to identify wider benefits to consumers and to firms, for example greater consumer access and saving, arising from a long-stop or a package of changes including one.

"These benefits would need to exceed the consumer detriment from time-barred complaints."

Mr Gray said the regulator would confirm its position on a 15-year "long-stop" for complaints in the retail distribution review feedback statement, which will be published on 25 November.