mis sold endowment

merv1419

I'm new to this lot and am trying to reclaim anything I might be entitled to.
I was sold an endowment policy on 17th dec 1991 with Scottish Life, the person who sold me the policy was Mr Iain Alcorn, Premier Park Financial Services, for £48 to cover a £51000 mortgage, I didn't hear anything from any company until January 2000, when I recieved my first statement.
It stated on the letter if there was any problems I should contact my financial adviser Buckle Barton, then successive statemnets have arrived with Manor Financial Management Limited as my advisers, every statement that comes it usually alternates between the 2 companies, don't know why !!
I december 2000 I was contacted by Scottish Life stating there was a shortfall of between £31000 and £24000 depending on interest in the endowment, at the time we spoke with scottish life they wanted us to increase our payments from £48 a month to £125 a month, we decided after getting advice to swap mortgages to a repayment but keep the endowment going as a savings account.
I have only recently heard that people are now claiming against mis sold endowments, the problem is after researching how to get started and contacting Scottish Life for the company who sold the endowment, I have discovered that they ceased trading around 1997.
What, if anything can I do??

Merv

McKneff

Timewise, I think you have missed the boat, but I'm quite happy to be corrected.

magpiecottage

You would need to refer the matter to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Whether you are entitled to redress will depend, in the first instance, on what letters Scottish Life sent you. If they gave a final date on which to make a complaint then, if it has passed, you will find you cannot claim.

Otherwise, it is likely to depend on whether any documentation survives that shows you understood the risks. If it does and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme is able to track it down your claim is likely to fail. Otherwise it may be upheld.

dunstonh

I have only recently heard that people are now claiming against mis sold endowments,

Mostly they are not any more since most endowments became barred from complaint around 2-3 years ago. Only around a quarter of endowments are now not time barred.

Scottish Life will be able to tell you if you are time barred or not.

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

Scottish Life will be able to tell you if you are time barred or not.

Agreed.

However, if the December 2000 letter said there was a high risk of a shortfall, which the a recommendation to increase increase the premium by 150% suggests, then a subsequent letter warning of a shortfall before November 2003 would mean a timebar could be applied whether or not Scottish Life gave a specific date in its correspondence.

Furthermore, as the OP indicated they acted on the original notification of a shortfall by converting to repayment, that would suggest they knew the policy was not going to do what they intended it to do at that time.

Consequently, I think it likely that the FSCS would apply a timebar, I'm afraid.