St James Place

dianadors

Some one I thought was an Independent Financial advisor has been to see my hubby and I as hubby can retire from work if he chooses to now. He started delving into my meagre pension pot and has suggested I move it from L&G to be managed by St James Place. Turns out he is a partner, so not quite independent. I have read a thread on here from 2006 about St James Place - has anybody any uptodate dealings worth this company worth knowing about?

dunstonh

SJP are one of the most expensive distribution channels going. Even more than the banks. IFAs love coming across SJP clients as its so easy to beat them both on investment choice and cost.

There have been more recent threads covering them but the last pension transfer I did from an SJP pension showed a £204,000 difference using the same projection rates (SJP being £204k less and therefore more expensive by that amount). That was based solely on charges.

They are usually very slick and have expensive brochures etc but you are paying a fortune in charges for it.

RichandJ

dunstonh wrote: »

SJP are one of the most expensive distribution channels going. Even more than the banks. IFAs love coming across SJP clients as its so easy to beat them both on investment choice and cost.

There have been more recent threads covering them but the last pension transfer I did from an SJP pension showed a £204,000 difference using the same projection rates (SJP being £204k less and therefore more expensive by that amount). That was based solely on charges.

They are usually very slick and have expensive brochures etc but you are paying a fortune in charges for it.

Although the myriad FS quotes we provide these [STRIKE]shysters[/STRIKE] honest & open advisers with rarely result in an actual request for transfer. Unless of course it's to a QROPS.

There really doesn't seem to be any way of protecting people from themselves. They won't see an IFA "because it's expensive innit", so go to the scam artists, not of course that I believe for a moment that SJP could be described as such, because there's no explicit up-front fee.

BTW dh I have tried a few times to put off IFA TV requests by calling back and stating "this is a final salary scheme" but it seems that the tick box mentality is everywhere & they still want one. I could understand requesting a deferred benefit statement and the relevant rules applying to it, but a full TV quote ? Especially when members are only entitled to one free per twelvemonth ?

Iancfp

Huge charges
Funds that are supposed to be chosen by experts but 3/4s of them are below average
and a nasty hard sell approach

Avoid at all costs

dunstonh

BTW dh I have tried a few times to put off IFA TV requests by calling back and stating "this is a final salary scheme" but it seems that the tick box mentality is everywhere & they still want one. I could understand requesting a deferred benefit statement and the relevant rules applying to it, but a full TV quote ? Especially when members are only entitled to one free per twelvemonth ?

I would like to say that its probably their compliance dept requirement to have it on their files when investigating a pension. However, I fear its the low skilled ones that wouldnt know the difference between a defined benefit and a defined contribution scheme (although some could be genuinely doing a TVAS). I would still offer the benefit statement as first choice.

sandsy

Key thing is that he is not independent. All he can recommend you is St James Place products, irrespective of whetheh they're the best products for you...and they're probably not.

Loughton_Monkey

Let me put it this way.

Anyone who has worked in Financial Services, and has a broad understanding of pensions, investments, and savings, would avoid St James Place like the plague.

Their objective is basically to 'sell' the (very expensive) limited range of products available to them. I suspect what you need is (a) some intelligent broad advice about all the options available to you, with pro's and cons [i.e. to agree a vaild strategy with you, and (b) having agreed that strategy, to search the market and find realistic 'quality' products at reasonable charges.

If you choose a 'good' IFA, possibly one that works on a fixed fee basis, you will be far better informed, and far better off in the long run.

dianadors

Many thanks to all who responded. Whilst we didnt get the feeling of hard sell, I felt we were being manipulated into moving things around, which is not what we called him for in the first place. Incidently the pension advise we sought for my husband was brushed over and not discussed. I was also worried about the way that dcuments were drawn up - stating that we had said we weere OK with "medium" risk, when we had previously said twice that we were minimal risk. And I noticed all the documents stated that we had asked him to look at moving my pension, and we had asked him to obtain life assurance quotes, when in fact he had been the one to reccomend these. I got uneasy and felt I was being conned.