Mis-sold endowment by a solicitor

cheshire_cheese

Hi, I have already read a similar thread on this issue and the overall opinion is "if you don't have written proof, forget it!" The only aspect of the mis-selling which I think I can prove was the banking of a cheque given to us by our solicitor as an incentive to buy the endowment he was selling (it was 50% of his commission). This however does not fit within the criteria for 'mis-selling'. Any thoughts on this - does the offering of a financial incentive help or hinder our case?

dunstonh

It makes no difference unless the rebate was due to the transaction going through on execution only. i.e. you told the solicitor you were doing endowment and he only facilitated the application to that company and provided no advice. Quite common in the past and large rebates often reflect that.

cheshire_cheese

Thanks for the reply. The solicitor in question did provide advice which unfortunately was misleading ie. based on the trends at the time, there was nothing to worry about in terms of the endowment not performing well! At the time the £50 we were given was a great bonus - it sucks when I see our predicted short fall on the endowment as being £20K! I think I might have to take up playing the National Lottery....!

dunstonh

cheshire_cheese wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. The solicitor in question did provide advice which unfortunately was misleading ie. based on the trends at the time, there was nothing to worry about in terms of the endowment not performing well! At the time the £50 we were given was a great bonus - it sucks when I see our predicted short fall on the endowment as being £20K! I think I might have to take up playing the National Lottery....!

In defence of the solicitor, they normally get involved after mortgage is arranged and they used to try and pinch the endowment business if you had already chosen to go down that route.

Did you agree the type of mortgage before or after seeing the solicitor?

cheshire_cheese

We had already spoken to a financial advisor (linked to an estate agent) to discuss a property sale which fell through. Given what she had told us, we thought an endowment seemed like a good idea (looking back, we were very ignorant on such matters at this stage) . My partner went to the solicitor to ask him to proceed with the sale of another house on the market with another estate agent. I can only remember that at that time we were arranging our mortgage with the Derbyshire BC..............The solicitor used this contact as an opportunity to sell us an endowment.

dunstonh

cheshire_cheese wrote: »

We had already spoken to a financial advisor (linked to an estate agent) to discuss a property sale which fell through. Given what she had told us, we thought an endowment seemed like a good idea (looking back, we were very ignorant on such matters at this stage) . My partner went to the solicitor to ask him to proceed with the sale of another house on the market with another estate agent. I can only remember that at that time we were arranging our mortgage with the Derbyshire BC..............The solicitor used this contact as an opportunity to sell us an endowment.

Good chance that this would be documented as you having already chosen the repayment method of endowment before seeing the estate agent and that they were just acting on meeting that particular need.

Had you stuck with the original adviser, they would have been liable for the advice.

Its a bit like seeing an adviser to get the advice and then arranging it yourself from somewhere else. The adviser is only liable if you transact through them.