miss sold endowment

xrayman

I am in the process of making a claim for the miss selling of an endowment. (This process has taken over 1 year to date). When we recieved a red letter saying that there would be shortfall we were advised to make other arrangements to pay off the shortfall. i Therefore in 2004 we changed our mortgage to a repayment mortgage to ensure we could keep control over our financial dealings. However we have now found that any claim will now only take into account any loss upto 2004. ( The endowment is still running and we still need it to pay off some of our mortgage). We think this is unfair because if we had done nothing and made a claim it would take all the timescale up to the present day into account therefore giving a larger settlement if we win our claim. Has anyone been in a similar position and willing to offer any advice.

dunstonh

However we have now found that any claim will now only take into account any loss upto 2004. ( The endowment is still running and we still need it to pay off some of our mortgage). We think this is unfair because if we had done nothing and made a claim it would take all the timescale up to the present day into account therefore giving a larger settlement if we win our claim. Has anyone been in a similar position and willing to offer any advice.

Actually its a good thing. Performance of many endowments (particulary unit linked) has picked up with the recovery of the stockmarket. That is why redress payments are dropping and in some cases nothing is payable. In your case, you will have it worked out on pre-recovery values, assuming it is upheld.

xrayman

This is all very confusing. So its a good thing. Is this normal practice to wait over 1 year and continually being asked for further information such as interests rates for each year dating back to 1993, original copy of initial mortgage offer.ect. I started all this in january 2006? i read in these pages that most people are dealt with within a few weeks/months.

financial_unadviser

Who is your complaint with, if you don't mind me asking? Any docs they are asking you o provide may be used against you when they assess your complaint

dunstonh

Is this normal practice to wait over 1 year and continually being asked for further information such as interests rates for each year dating back to 1993, original copy of initial mortgage offer.ect. I started all this in january 2006? i read in these pages that most people are dealt with within a few weeks/months.

The client file may have evidence on it or records on it which disprove what you are saying. They could be asking to see what you have to prove otherwise. For example, if you are using the "past retirement age" reason but the endowment finishes when you are aged 60, then many are now asking for evidence that you were going to retire at 60 and not just using that as an excuse to get compensation (they dont say that last bit but there has been abuse of that reason.

It could be that there is not enough on file to prove one way or the other and are looking for you to provide proof. In these cases where it is unproven, redress is usually payable. Most complaints are not actually upheld. They are classed as unproven as the documentation isnt up to scratch and that is seen as the advising firm's fault and not yours.

Is your complaint still with the company or has it moved onto the FOS? You would expect the company itself to be less than a year (sometimes not by much but usually). The FOS themselves can take a year easily. The FSCS can take two.

xrayman

The complaint had to go through the Law society because the policy was sold through a solicitor. The Law society assessed the claim. They said I had no loss. I lodged a complaint with the LSO. In the meantime the Law society admitted they had made a mistake. The file is now back with the Law society. The claim could take further months to process. I understand why people give up with thier claim.

dunstonh

Ahh, a solicitor. That explains the timescale. A different set of rules to the rest of us.

At least you arent in Scotland.

xrayman

Thanks for the help, it looks like I may have many more months of jumping through hoops and searching for 15 year old documents. Thanks again.