Time Barred Endowment! Any advice?

leona71

I wrote with my 'which site' letter to Friends Provident about our shortfall just like everyone else is doing. I was miss-sold our policy which we took out in 1994 and we were definitely promised that the policy would pay the mortgage. Anyway I received a letter back from FP yesterday saying we were timed barred and to contact the FSA to complain but they will side with FP (they quote this in their letter).

I don't understand about this time barring system. I thought everyone got 3 years from the first 'warning shortfall' letter. My first letter was received mid 2004 and the second red letter was November 2005 so why are we time barred?

Hope someone can help as i've tried a search and nothing helps me here.

Thanks

Leona

EdInvestor

Take your complaint to the Ombudsman, explaining when you got your red letter.Very possibly FP is just saying this in the hope you will give up and go away.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

defender_of_the_weak

If FP are time barring they will normally include copies of the red (high risk) letters they sent out. The words 'high risk' make the letters red, not any explicit print or statements. If you have letters with this statement on it more than 3 years old you are sunk unless there have been exceptional circumstances preventing you from taking action before, or FP have been sending them to the wrong address.

Financially I understand why FP do this, but morally I think it stinks. The FSA/ABI regulator and heads of companies should hang their heads in shame at the disgraceful way they take peoples money for years, fail to give what was promised and mess with peoples lives using technicalities

leona71

We have two 'red letters' so to speak, one isn't in red text the other is. They date mid 2004 and Nov 2005. Even if the letter had been Jan 2004 surely that would just make to date 2 years. That is the only letters attached to the letter they sent recently. I understand that the time to complain about the shortfall is 3 years. So why are we getting only 2 years from the first short fall letter. We haven't received any letters before that. So what now? I'm just ready to give up now and just surrender the policy. I don't want to be paying £76 every month for a rubbish return.

Thanks

Leona

defender_of_the_weak

If their covering letter does not detail any correspondence prior to the 2004 they cannot time bar based on these two letters. Perhaps an over zealous reviewer or just an idiot.

You can surrender your policy and keep on fighting (but not sell it to a third party company). If you do this it creates a date on which any calculation of loss will run to, but interest will be added if you eventually win . If you do eventually win you may lose some contribution towards the cost of converting your mortgage to repayment which FP would have paid.

Definetly worth fighting, have another read of the rejection letter and see if anything else is mentioned as a reason for time barring

leona71

Okay i've read the letter back from FP and they attached at letter of statement dated 16th of November 2004 it comes with a red letter shortfall notice and the statement is from December 2003 to the 16th November 2004. It states the following - we made you aware of your policy and gave you until the 19th of Oct 2005 to register a complaint with FP (it does state in the copy of the letter that if we fail to put in a complaint before the 19th of Oct we will probably have lost our right to compensation).

It goes on to state because the complaint was not received until Feb 2006 we are out of time.

It states at the end of the letter (knife goes in) Please not that in the event of a referral we will inform the Ombudsman that we have time barred your complaint and in our view it's outside their jurisdiction. For the purposes of the FOS this letter serves as my Final Response in this matter.....end of to to speak.

So i suppose we were given a warning back in November 2004 but i thought everyone got 3 years. What is this all about?? Do FP make up their own rules?

Leona

defender_of_the_weak

There must be a previous red letter from October 2002 on which they have set the clock running, even though you did not realise. Can you confirm the presence of such a letter, or more importantly, can they?

The matter of jurisdiction is for FOS to decide not FP, but what they can do is object to a referral using the time bar rules. In reality, these rules do not even apply to companies but try and get the government and regulator to change it, not a chance.

leona71

Hi thanks for your answers and looking at this for me.

No there was no letter at all in 2002 and they haven't mentioned anything about correspondance in 2002 or 2003, just the red letter they sent us in November 2004 (which they have attached) and obviously there was a clock ticking from Nov 2004 onwards.

So i guess i write to the FOS and see what they say but the chances are they'll side with FP. This time barring rules make people want to just give up trying for compensation.

Thanks

Leona

defender_of_the_weak

They cannot time bar unless it is 3 years since the first high risk letter.

Go to FOS and challenge this but beware the initial FOS reaction, they may try and side with FP (because some of them are incompetent IMHO). This is being raised in the Mail on Sunday posibly next week. If you give up they will have won

leona71

Thanks, i will send FP a letter about this and also cc it to the FOS and fill in their form on the web site.

Hopefully we can do something about this as it's a large endowment and we have a big shortfall. We can't even sell on the endowment as it's 50% with profits and 50% managed - so no-one wants to buy it!!

I will look out for the artical in the Mail on Sunday...

Thanks again
Leona

vinno65

Hi Leona,
I have replied to your other thread with regards time bars. Also you do not say on what grounds you believe you were miss-sold. There are many reasons for miss-sale. In my case (sold in 1991) it was because i was single with no dependants at the time, the risks weren't explained to me and my attitude to risk was not ascertained. For a sale to be compliant FP must prove that A) an endowment was best suited to your circumstances at the time explained how they work i.e that they are a gamble and c) ascertained your attitude to risk with a fact find. If any of the above wasn't done then potentially there was a miss-sale.I too was promised that the endowment would pay off my mortgage. However this part of my complaint was rejected by FP and the FOS as i had no proof. However when I took FP to court the Judge accepted that this is what I had been told. Courts work on the balance of probabilities and all the evidence gathered by the FSA and Consumer's Association etc shows that between 50 and 60% of people were told that endowments would definately pay off the mortgage. Who would you believe? A firm that has admitted countless thousands of miss-sales and been fined £650,000 for miss-handling complaints or some-one who is just trying to keep a roof over their heads?
regards Vinno