Had a good or bad experience with pensions advice or guidance?

I'm an adviser. So, can only say from this side.

If people I don't know call me to sign a form saying they have been told they have to seek advice to get their pension out, I tell them to go elsewhere. The same position as many other advisers I know. There is too much concern over the FCA's position but more importantly, what the FOS is going to rule on a complaint 10-15 years down the road when the PPI companies move on to pensions and start cold calling people to put in fake complaints in the hope of some opportunistic payout.

Remember that the FCA have treated drawdown as high risk in the past. It doesnt appear to have changed that stance.

The Government may have said "buy a Lamborghini" and say its the individual's money to spend as they wish but an adviser would have a mis-sale complaint against them if they let a client spend their money that way. Yes, you can draw attention to the risks and present the risks. Many will get clients to sign to say they have been told the risks but the FOS take little notice of disclaimers. Often suggesting that someone that doesnt know what they are doing is not in a position to say they understand.

Now some of the above may be perception rather than reality but advisers have been crying out for guidance from the FCA and more importantly some idea of what the FOS would expect and issues it would consider when looking at whether advice is suitable or not. We are all making judgement calls at the moment and the easiest judgement call is to refuse to give advice or charge a lot for it because of the fear of future comeback.

For existing clients you have a long relationship and trust built up in both directions and will be prepared to do things. For someone with no relationship calling you because they have been told they need you to sign a form is a risk not worth taking at this time.

There are around 20,000 advisers today. Way down on the 200,000 decades ago (most of whom were sales reps). Those you have today are mostly genuine advisers looking to do a good job and act ethically. We are the ones paying excessive levies for the dodgy sods of the past. Those good advisers have become adverse to risky transactions or transactions that are perceived to be risky (risk as in the type that can come back and bite you on the bum later).

The fos has recently issued their stance on insistent clients. They are saying that if the adviser has outlined his advice in writing to the client. If the client was to put in writing to the adviser that they understand what he wishes to do is fully against the advice given and to be treated as an insistent client that should be sufficient. Saying that though I still think it would be high risk for an ifa to do this without and clear guidelines being given and I am sure a few pi insurers would start to get twitchy if the knew advisers were writing this business.

The fos has recently issued their stance on insistent clients. They are saying that if the adviser has outlined his advice in writing to the client. If the client was to put in writing to the adviser that they understand what he wishes to do is fully against the advice given and to be treated as an insistent client that should be sufficient.

The FOS are saying that now, but it is of virtually no relevance because advisers are worried about complaints 10-15 years down the line. In 10-15 years' time whoever wrote that guidance will long have moved onto another quango. In 10-15 years' time the FOS could have decided that the clients who complied with that guidance and wrote everything out in their own words could not be expected to understand what they were writing. It would be entirely consistent with their worldview and with decisions they have made in the past. We just don't know, and it's not worth trying to guess.

It used to be reasonably common for people who were fairly savvy about investments - say, retired IFAs - to be sold products on an "execution-only" basis, i.e. their adviser would send them a brochure about an investment but the client would make his own decision and not be issued with a suitability letter and what have you. And would sign an execution-only letter confirming that he understood that he waived the right to advice and to compensation. In exchange the adviser would rebate part of the commission, say 50%.

This practice has now almost entirely died out, because the FOS declared that regardless of what the client had signed, such business was not execution-only on the grounds that sending a client a brochure constitutes advice, and therefore the whole advice process including fact-finding and a suitability letter must be followed.

The FOS therefore has form in deciding that what was A is now B, even if a client and an adviser both agreed that it was A and signed a form to say so. Advisers have no reason not to believe that in 10 years time the FOS will do to handwritten "insistent client" letters exactly what they did to execution-only letters, i.e. declare them null and void.

Financial Ombudsman Service