Saga about a bank, enduring power of attorney and beyond

dunstonh

"Odin appears to have no current authority to act in this matter" agreed, this does seem to be the case at the moment but when 'he' becomes the person to suffer a loss does 'he' then not become entitled to take action?

The beneficiary hasnt lost money. The assets become theirs on death and its probable that the value of those assets his risen significantly since ownership. The loss occured before Odin owned the assets.

Odin may not have the risk profile of thor. So, whilst Odin was happy with the risk profile, Odin may not be. - I would expect that to be raised as a rebuttal on any complaint if it became drawn out.

"since it's clear where the money is." uuuuummmmm the valuations Odin obtained in 2009 would seem to indicate that the PEPs/ISAs had lost more than £15,000 in VALUE since 'his' 'attorneyship' in 2007. I don't completely understand PEPs etc and what they contain but I recollect Odin mentioning numbers of shares and share prices or something similar in connection with these PEPs/ISAs so it may be that they do-not/did-not contain cash, if such a thing is possible

And they probably doubled in the 5 years before that. zig zagging on investment returns is normal.

I am afraid I don't understand your talk of "accepted authority". The bone of contention between Odin and the bank will be that Odin's rightful authority over these accounts was NOT acknowledged/accepted whilst Thor was alive and Odin would further argue that the bank, beyond the LHSB, were not in the least bit helpful.

They probably were not helpful but it sounds like the ISA/PEPs were self select products rather than funds (you mention shares). The retail bank branch would have little or nothing to do with the ISA manager on a self select product. It may have the logo in the corner but thats about the only bit they share. Indeed, some of the banks cant pass information between their subsidiary companies. When I used to work for Lloyds many years ago, the bank staff could not pass info onto the investment staff and vice versa as they were different companies. I dont know if that is still the case.

Thor is not sure if 'he' will get much help form either Magni or Balour in this matter and believes that these PEPs/ISAs will be encashed into Loki's estate before the estate is dispersed.

Thats a discussion between the executor and the beneficiaries. They dont need to be encashed. They can be passed in situ. It also depends on the Will. The Will may state they should be passed in situ. That would blow any complaint out of the water as it would then be clear that there was never any intention to sell.

ust as a matter of interest what would be the tax situation if the contents etc of the PEPs were transferred to Odin?

They are included in the estate of IHT purposes. Odin would not have them in his ISA as the ISA ceases on death. They become unwrapped investments (i.e. not in an ISA). Odin could then use his own ISA allowances to put them into the ISA over time.

John_Pierpoint

If some of these Scandinavians had been on the ball, they could have sold the equities in the year following the death and at least put the loss against any IHT due on the estate(s) as at the date of death values.

It wasn't Barclays by any chance was it?

norse-storyteller

Sorry double post

norse-storyteller

John P, IHT was and is not an issue. Being polite Thor thinks mead must have fogged the minds of Loci's advisors but going after them is NOT on the cards. Sorry I can't answer your question about which bank this is.

Dunstonh, I can't completely answer all your points with out consulting Odin but I will give what answers I currently can.

Re "The beneficiary hasnt lost money. The assets become theirs on death and its probable that the value of those assets his risen significantly since ownership. The loss occured before Odin owned the assets." Does that not blow Odin's case out of the water? If so can you suggest how Odin should proceed? Odin fully expects this to end up with the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Re "Odin may not have the risk profile of thor. So, whilst Odin was happy with the risk profile, Odin may not be." Lets just say Odin would not be happy to leave these investments in the hands of tha Valhalla any longer than is necessary.

Re "I would expect that to be raised as a rebuttal on any complaint if it became drawn out." Are you saying that you think that the Valhalla would argue that Thor was happy with the 'risk' with these investments and that from the Valhalla's viewpoint this argument would counter Odin's argument that they failed Thor by not acknowledging Odin's EPOA authority in a timely manner.

Re "And they probably doubled in the 5 years before that. zig zagging on investment returns is normal." & "They probably were not helpful but it sounds like the ISA/PEPs were self select products rather than funds (you mention shares)." . I can't answer those at the moment and I dont think Odin would know the answer to the "self select" point.

Re "The retail bank branch would have little or nothing to do with the ISA manager on a self select product. It may have the logo in the corner but thats about the only bit they share. This does seem to be the case at least with the Asgard office.

Re "Indeed, some of the banks cant pass information between their subsidiary companies." Odin considers this to be one of the points of 'his' complaint, he was not made aware of this until after Thor's death. Neither 'he' nor I have seen any reference to this in pre-death correspondance and Odin has no recollection of this being mentioned in conversations with bank staff. Odin has also said and would therefore argue that he thinks that the average person in the street would not be aware of this and that in that light 'Joe Bloggs' would see the LHSB as the access point to all of the bank's facilities, as Odin did.

Re "Thats a discussion between the executor and the beneficiaries. They dont need to be encashed. They can be passed in situ." Odin had been advised of this of this but and has informed Magni and Balour to that effect but whether Magni and Balour take heed of this only time will tell and that may be the subject of another thread at a later time.

jamesd

norse-storyteller, the LHSB part accepted the power of attorney as authority, so whether there were sales with what Ragnarok was looking after might be evidence of whether there may have been sales at Asgard if the power had been accepted in all parts. Now here I'm assuming that Ragnorak and Asgard are offices of the bank and not fund management houses like Fidelity or Scottish Widows or Invesco.

Odin has two potential cases, one as holder of the EPOA, one as beneficiary. As beneficiary there's no case because there's no ownership until the inheritance is passed on. As EPOA holder there must be some sales or the must be some evidence of investment advice being given and a risk profile being determined, that risk profile being lower than the one that was actually used. If that risk profile mismatch exists and can be proved then there's a potential case if the purchases were based on investment advice. But a LHSB sale would typically not be with investment advice.

When in 2009 were the valuations obtained? If it was say the start of March that was the low point for many markets. If it was say October things had improved greatly. Obtaining another valuation if the old one is more than say two months ago may be useful. Here's an example of how some funds have performed:



Red: a tracker fund for the UK FTSE 100 Index (HSBC FTSE 100 accumulation units).
Blue: a cautious corporate bond fund (Invesco Perpetual Corporate Bond accumulation units).
Yellow: an emerging markets fund (Scottish Widows Latin American accumulation units)

You should be able to see why timing of valuation and investments matter. The FTSE 100 tracker is now only a few percent below where it was at the start of 2007 while both of the other two are above their start of 2007 valuations. All three would have been lower at the start of 2009.

If you can say what the investments were and when they were purchased that would allow some chance of working out whether they are still below starting value or not. A valuation would typically also say how many units of each investment are held and you could put that information into a number of web tools to get valuations whenever you like.

norse-storyteller

JamesD, thanks.


Re "so whether there were sales with what Ragnarok was looking after might be evidence of whether there may have been sales at Asgard if the power had been accepted in all parts. Now here I'm assuming that Ragnorak and Asgard are offices of the bank and not fund management houses like Fidelity or Scottish Widows or Invesco.", there were no sales with either the Asgard office or Ragnarok office at any time, Thor had all returns reinvested and Odin was never in a position to issue such instructions. With regard to the Thor's other accounts there was nothing for Odin to do as every thing that Thor had set up met 'his' needs up until 'his' death. The letters from both offices have letter heads which begin 'Valhalla' with no indication to our eyes that there are 'external' fund management houses involved, the same applies to statements etc so it is assumed that these offices are 'in house'.

With regard to your 2nd paragraph and the comments of dunstonh it would seem that Odin's long boat is up a fjord without any oars. Sugar!

Re your subsequent paragraphs, thankyou they are spirit raising. Odin will contact these offices in an attempt to gain current valuations but does not want them published