Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

tightwadman

How do you prove negligence? That is going to be your problem.

Oh I think it can be done and certainly intend to try.

To prove negligence you must satisfy a court that you have suffered a loss. If you were sold a mortgage endowment that was supposed to clear a mortgage of say £50,000 but your endowment only produced £30,000 that it is a loss of £20,000 to you that you must make up in some other way. You can claim up to £5,000 in the small claims court without having to involve expensive legal representation. I am very confident that an action coud be won.

I also believe it is possible to prove negligence in the selling process by the IFA. My own policy had an assured sum that was many, many thousands of pounds below the associated mortgage amount and so was sold without any guarantee that it could pay the mortgage off.

The IFA's who sold us these policies profited enormously from commission paid for out of our own premiums .I have written proof that my IFA even tried to sell us another policy - a household polciy and again neglected to mention the fact he would profit from our policy.

Watch this space as my policy matures next year and I am definitely taking my IFA on.

dunstonh

To prove negligence you must satisfy a court that you have suffered a loss. If you were sold a mortgage endowment that was supposed to clear a mortgage of say £50,000 but your endowment only produced £30,000 that it is a loss of £20,000 to you that you must make up in some other way. You can claim up to £5,000 in the small claims court without having to involve expensive legal representation. I am very confident that an action coud be won.

At no point was the investment guaranteed to repay the mortgage and you could have got back more or less than the amount required. You are assuming that repayment was guaranteed and that is not the case.

I also believe it is possible to prove negligence in the selling process by the IFA. My own policy had an assured sum that was many, many thousands of pounds below the associated mortgage amount and so was sold without any guarantee that it could pay the mortgage off.

That wont work. Low cost endowments do have a lower basic sum assured and that is how they work. The bonuses are added on top of that and are subject to investment returns. The basic sum assured is not meant to be the same as the target.

The IFA's who sold us these policies profited enormously from commission paid for out of our own premiums .I have written proof that my IFA even tried to sell us another policy - a household policy and again neglected to mention the fact he would profit from our policy.

There is no legal requirement for advisers to disclose commission on household policies. So thats a waste of time. Plus earning a commission or making a profit is not illegal either.

Do you see your supermarket disclose to you that they are going to profit from your business?

Watch this space as my policy matures next year and I am definitely taking my IFA on.

A solicitor would almost certainly put you off as your case is unlikely to succeed. Certainly, using the points you have mentioned so far, it would do. You need something more creative or more substantial than what you have so far.

tightwadman

A solicitor would almost certainly put you off as your case is unlikely to succeed. Certainly, using the points you have mentioned so far, it would do. You need something more creative or more substantial than what you have so far.

Now come on Dunstoh - are you an IFA or a Solicitor or both? In any event I dont need a solicitor to use the small claims court and what have I got to lose ? £60 max? Is an IFA really going to use the services of a barrister or lawyer or even a solicitor at a small claims hearing knowing they could not claim for such expenses?

I notice you pouring cold water over any attempt to reclaim money from mis-sold endowments.This wouldnt be anything to do with the damage this business has done to your industry? Or to the reputations of IFAs who failed to tell their clients a mortgage endowment policy would earn them 4 times the value of any other polcy they could sell?

You also fail to mention the numerous successfull claims made all of which were based on misrepresentation / misdescription at point of sale by IFAs and not on performamce of the policy. People were sold policies theat were entirely unsuitable and which they did not need or were not appropriate for their circumstances. Where is the evidence that IFAS gave any warnings about stock markets potentially causing a loss. My policy made it clear that there was a "smoothing process" in that funds would be held back in good years to put back in less good years. Its in black and white and as it did not happen isnt that evidence of misdescription?

dunstonh

I notice you pouring cold water over any attempt to reclaim money from mis-sold endowments.

Obviously you dont read the posts much as that isnt the case.

This wouldnt be anything to do with the damage this business has done to your industry?

It hasnt cost me a penny and never will. I dont give two hoots whether you succeed or not.

You also fail to mention the numerous successfull claims made all of which were based on misrepresentation / misdescription at point of sale by IFAs and not on performamce of the policy.

Please provide evidence of these numurous court cases where this has been the case.

You go and enjoy your day out in court. Providing the advising firm has held onto it's documentation then it shouldnt be a problem for them to supply enough proof. One assumes you have failed in both the complaints proceedure and the FOS so the evidence has to be pretty strong to be in their favour. Especially as the FOS tends to support the consumer more than the advising firm on the basis that if it wasnt documented it didnt happen.

timbur

Has anyone secured details of the actual commissions paid to IFA's for selling endowments and how long these were paid for?[/QUOTE]

Dear Tightwadman,

You can, I believe, obtain details of the commission paid from the endowment provider. It may depend on the date the policy was sold. In our case, Standard Life provided me with details of the commission paid on a policy sold in late 1988. They also confirmed that a token commission, in our case £0.62 pence per month, continued to be paid to the IFA (in our case this was a building society) although you can put a stop to the payment.

Best Wishes
Timbur

Lindawh

Hi, Hope someone out there can help!!! I am asking this on behalf of my elderly parents, here goes....They took an endownment mortgage out with Abbey National in 1982 the endownment was a low start (advised by the adviser from Abbey) then as it matured and they came to retirement age the payments increased. My father did complain about the policy some time ago and was advised by Abbey that as they signed up to this there was nothing they could do about it. (this was long before GOD :A Martin was around to help us) Would it be worth it to try for a mis-sold policy? I know it was a long time ago but the policy just finished 2 years ago is there a time limit? any help please....thanks:think:

decadentlywasted

Hi All,

Just a quick one to report a success in claiming mis-selling compensation.

After trying a specialist firm, who said that there was nothing that they could do to help me, I contacted the endowment firm to see what options I had. Needless to say, they insisted that they has no responsibility for the mis-selling - it was the building society's fault. I then used the Which letter generator to write to the building society concerned directly. The endowment was taken out in 1986 (matures in 2011) and, being only 19 when I took it out, I only had minimal documentation to back up my claim.

Six weeks later I got a response: they had no documentation to prove or disprove my claim and suggested that it was the endowment company's responsibility.

After highlighting to both parties the contradiction in their stories, the building society offered me a reasonable sum in "full and final settlement" of the issue, whilst not admitting that it was their responsibility (it was a goodwill gesture or something like).

So, no matter how bleak it looks, it's always worth a few hours and the price of a stamp - you never know what you might get.

melorac

Thanks decadentlywasted....
I got a letter back from my endowment company yesterday... stating that they were looking into my complaint. Which is more than I expected, as I thought that I would be told rather quickly by them that I was too late to complain. But you are right... for the cost of a stamp, it is worth asking...

To quote someones signature on this site.. "Shy kids dont get many sweets"

chocolady

I have been corresponding with my endowment provider Zurich over the past couple of months and after several letters and numerous phone calls they have sent me a letter yesterday saying "they have considered the information held on their file and based on what they have seen, they believe compensation may be due as they have been unable to satisfy themselves that the risk based nature of our plan was fully explained to us." They say they need to consider the other aspects of advice we received but to do so I need to answer additional questions raised in the loss assessment calculation form. This form asks me about my savings and whether I made lump sum payments off my mortgage. They then say they have Method A and Method B ways of calculating my compensation. A is based on the calculation on my mortgage arrangement when the plan was taken out and any changes to my plan from that date, but it will not reflect any subsequent changes to your mortgage lender or interest rate. They will assume our mortgage remained on an interest only basis with our original company. They say this method is likely to be quicker

Method B is calculated on the complete history of our mortgage arrangements and we have to provide complete history details (some I have not got to hand). It takes account of different lenders since the plan started. I have to send them details for each subsequent mortgage (I have had three). They say unless I provide them with this information within two weeks they will assume I wanted my compensation calculated under Method A.

I dont know what to do for the best. I wonder if they are trying to get me to give them all this information in order to pay me less compensation as they dont have my details on their files and whether I would be better letting them assume what they like or whether I would be better off giving them all these details to the best of my ability. I am disabled and to be honest after all the problems I have had so far am just as happy to let the deadline pass as they say if this happens they will assume I am happy with Method A and their reasonable assumptions.

Has anyone got any thoughts?

dunstonh

I wonder if they are trying to get me to give them all this information in order to pay me less compensation as they dont have my details on their files

No, they are required to ask you if you want to give them the rate data so they can exactly work it out based on your real rates or whether you want to use the Halifax standard variable rate as you cannot supply the rate data.

If you have the data and the time you can let them know it. If not let them use the Halifax SVR