Update: IFA Advisor bill missold Endow. ADVICE PLS

Lady_K

Earlier this year I wrote about being unfairly sold an Endowment policy claim with Standard Life. They offered me £350 to put towards a Financial Advisor. I took this up and as I wrote in the earlier thread she was here for around 40 mins max and gave me useless advise and nothing I already knew, in fact she talked about day to day chat and spent less than 5 minutes about the policy. I had a voucher for a free 30 mins but she did not want to accept it. She sent me a bill for the exact £350 as she knew beforehand about the Standard Life offer. She sent the bill with no report at all; she did not deserve this payment in my opinion.

I did not pay the bill and she sent me a reminding letter. I rang them to say that I had not been given the money towards the IFA because there had been no report and I would be willing to send the voucher that I had offered her at the time if she preferred as I was in no position to pay for it personally, this was explained even before she came to see me. It was her son I think that took that call as she was on the phone, he said he would pass it on to her. I heard no more from them till this morning so I presumed that it was acceptable and that she would not be charging me now. She had actually told me when she came round that if it hadn’t been for Standard Life offering to give me the money towards the FIA that she would not have charged me.

I received a letter from her dated 30th Sept, which I received today 2nd Oct.  In it it’s saying that as of 1st Oct the partnership will be dissolved and as such will cease to trade and that she is now joining a new financial services, the financial services arm of a firm of accountants. She’s giving me her new contact details and follows by saying...

'I will be transferring the servicing rights of your policies to these company services so that I can continue to act on your behalf. Should you not wish to continue our working relationship would you please confirm this in writing, I will otherwise assume that you are happy with this new arrangement.'

I never at any time signed anything or wrote to her even though she sent me something to sign I did not want to because it didn’t feel right especially as she had given me no report.

I am unsure what to do now as there’s no way I can pay that bill. Do you think I might still have to pay it? And I do still have the voucher but I ‘m not sure there is a time limit on it

payless

Remember it well-

From what you state it does not sound like she is chasing you for the money, but rather must had got you to sign over the renewal commission to her, which she is taking to new firm

Lady_K

I dont quite understand... I don't know if I should write to her or not because I don't really need her for anything now and I never signed the financial planning engagement that she sent me with the bill. I never saw any paperwork at all till I got the bill, but she phrases it like shes acting on my behalf. When I spoke to her son I did say if I ever needed advice in the future I would remember her but that was mainly coz I wanted no more problems with this bill. Do I really need to write to her or email her or is it best left alone. I was worried in case I'll end up owing money to the new company, I dont know what renewal commision is :-/

dunstonh

She never transferred the servicing rights when she saw you as that requires a letter/authority signed by you which you say didnt happen.

However, you should have signed a terms of business document/letter at the time.  

Chances are she is now trying to get you to sign them to get your polices transferred to her new agency and earn the renewal commission from it. (standard life pay a percentage of each premium to an agency, this agency can be switched which is what she is asking you to agree to).

I would suggest that as you have no relationship with this IFA, you shouldnt sign anything.  This will have no impact on any previous billing.

If there wasnt a terms of business signed on the visit made, she cannot ask you for any money as that outlines the method of remuneration.  If it is not provided, they cant bill you.

A lot of advisors move between companies from time to time but it is usually best to avoid those that move frequently. ie, sells x company products to 200 clients. Moves to y company and then comes back to tell you that you should now be with y company. Then moves to z company and does the same again. Each time they earn commission with the new company and no clawback from the old company as they have moved on. Good example in last month is someone that was told to stop paying their NU pension as Allied Dunbar was better, then a few years later, liberty life was better and so on a number of times. Now the client is retired, he has 7 pension providers, all but the first were sold by the same person and the best pension of the lot was the original NU pension which had a guaranteed annuity rate. Had he stuck with that, his income would have been at 25% higher. Anyway, i waffle on..back to subject...

Dont sign it. Once you find an IFA that you feel does work for your benefit, then happily sign over the servicing rights.

Lady_K

Hi,

Thanx for the replies and sorry to be so confused. In the letter I'm not being asked to sign anything she is just asking me to confirm in writing to her if I do not wish to continue our working relationship... I never knew we actually had one but I've never used a IFA before. All she did was verbally in 5 mins say the Endowment misselling offer was fine and to accept it and that by the time my mortgage was over in 10 years it will probably have made up by then anyway.

I am almost sure I did not sign any terms of agreement in the meeting at all, I am very careful of those things and I don’t think I signed anything at all. I rem I would not even sign the acceptance form from Standard Life while she was here too because she wanted to post it for me and I just preferred to do it myself. I still have the documents she sent with the bill though and that says at the top Financial planning engagement, a copy for me and a copy for her, they are still here unsigned. Reading the top of this Financial planning engagement again I see it does say... This agreement is supplementary to the terms of business and sets out the basis on which we charge for our services. It says it should be read in conjunction with the terms of business letter issued separately but I do not have a TOB letter at all.

In this new letter though she is saying she WILL be transferring the servicing rights of my policies so I don't know how she can do that if I haven’t signed for anything. She says if she doesn’t hear from me that she will presume that I'm happy with that. So I'm not sure what to do now or how to word anything I write to her if I need to let her know that I don't need her services now. I don’t want to ruffle her to request bill payment. It says in this financial planning agreement also in the commission section that I can terminate the engagement at any time without penalty subject to any outstanding fees being paid. It just worried me even though I cant rem signing anything and I have no copies either that she seems to think I have or she wouldn’t write this so if I’m wrong and I did sign something what then? I'm a bit worried about getting landed a bill at a later date as this was some months ago and them adding interest to it or something

To be honest I didn't feel comfortable with her I did not feel any trust in her and I'd never use her again so I don't want anything in her hands now or in the future, I just want to do it correctly now so I don't have any future problems, I just hope I didn't sign anything

Is an email considered in writing?

dunstonh

A provider will not switch servicing rights without a signature from the policyholder.

Standard Life usually print the name of the IFA on the policy statement so you could keep an eye on that. If it changes to a new address, you can ask standard life why they changed it.

If you are confident that you didnt sign anything, then dont do anything or tell a porky and write back to her and say you have another IFA who now acts for you and you dont want servicing rights transferred.

It could be just an elaborate marketing ploy. Shes gone to a new employer and probably told them she had x number of clients and she now has had to produce names for them.

robnye

A provider will not switch servicing rights without a signature from the policyholder

I disagree
I had  a missold policy, but due to the original company going bust and the policy being sold before the 1985 rules came into force, i have run into a brick wall.
It was only due to investigating I found that one of the directors of the original company had continuedd as an IFA and had taken over 'servicing the policy' without either the policy company or the IFA contacting me........!

from my experience, for an IFA to be servicing your policy..... means in simplest terms,, they are collecting the commission on any payments you continue to make.

I soon put a stop to that, buy writing a letter of disassociation to the policy company.

martinhp

It's a good chance that this letter maybe a generic one, that has gone to all her clients on her mailing list. (which I guess you are on) Maybe you could call Standard Life and just ask who the servicing adviser is

dunstonh

I disagree
I had  a missold policy, but due to the original company going bust and the policy being sold before the 1985 rules came into force, i have run into a brick wall.
It was only due to investigating I found that one of the directors of the original company had continuedd as an IFA and had taken over 'servicing the policy' without either the policy company or the IFA contacting me........!

It is quite possible that he bought the client bank/agency. In that case it is transferrable without authority. Probably wouldnt have paid much for it either.

robnye

It is quite possible that he bought the client bank/agency.  In that case it is transferrable without authority.    Probably wouldnt have paid much for it either.  

possibly.

but he didnt have to purchase it, he was already a director of the original company....

Lady_K

I just rang the Standard Life to ask who the servicing advisor is on my policy like martinhp suggested and they said it is Halifax Property services... is that right? I don't even know what that means but thats what they said.

Do you think I should email the IFA anyway and say thankyou for her letter but on checking with my endowment company the servicing rights are not actually with her at all and never were so I would like to confirm that I do not wish them to be transferred to her new company but I will keep her contact details if in the future I need her services and thankyou very much?

Is there anything that I could ask Standard Life to do to stop anyone taking the servicing rights without my permission?