Illiquid funds

Suzid1957

What does this mean to my husbands pension fund and what can we do about it

Brynsam

Are you saying that your husband's pension is invested in illiquid funds? if so, there's not much you can do until something changes to make them 'liquid' again. What sort of assets are we looking at?

zagfles

It basically means funds which are hard to sell. What are they?

Suzid1957

Hi. My husbands pension was transferred after being made redundant. We know very little about pensions. The two companies we have become involved with is Curtis banks and portafina. An agreement was set up a few years ago with portafina that we would take a draw down of £8000 per annum for the next 10 years. We have received 2 payments then last year was told it couldn’t be paid as the funds were illiquid. No warning before hand and no explanation. We were advised to report them to the financial ombudsmen which we have but still haven’t got an outcome from this and still nobody has explained to us exactly what it means and what’s going to happen to this £126000 that’s illiquid. TIA for your reply

Paul_Herring

portafina

A year ago from dunstonh: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5631320/portafina#4

I suggest reading the whole thread. Was the initial contact with them, them cold-calling you?

Suzid1957

I believe it was an advert for releasing pension funds. Portafina are trying to say that there is a time issue made by us not complaining within the allowed period. We didn’t know we weren’t going to get the draw down until 2 weeks before it was due to be paid!!! This seems to be the only thing they have to go against our complaint with the ombudsman. It appears that once again the working man has unwittingly had the rug pulled from under him and we will be saying goodbye to all that money and can’t really do anything about it

Suzid1957

The original drawdown was set up in 2015 and fixed at £8000 per annum we were paid that year and the next. In 2017 we got an email from Curtis banks 2 weeks before it was due to be paid telling us to get in touch with portafina as there was not enough funds to make the payment. This was the first notification we had that anything was wrong

Malthusian

This seems to be the only thing they have to go against our complaint with the ombudsman. It appears that once again the working man has unwittingly had the rug pulled from under him and we will be saying goodbye to all that money and can’t really do anything about it

The Ombudsman can award redress of up to £150,000 per complaint, and if Portafina are unable to pay you will be compensated by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to £50,000 per person.

Suzid1957

I!!!8217;m very green in all this our complaint to the FOS has been against Portafina does anyone know if we should have raised a complaint against Curtis banks (the administrators I think) also TIA for you reply

Malthusian

Suzid1957 wrote: »

I!!!8217;m very green in all this our complaint to the FOS has been against Portafina does anyone know if we should have raised a complaint against Curtis banks (the administrators I think) also TIA for you reply

Short answer is no. As I understand it, Portafina advised you to take out the investments and they are liable if ultra-high-risk illiquid investments were unsuitable for you (which they almost certainly are). Curtis Banks vere just following ze orders.

The long answer is that some people who are in a similar situation to you, but weren't advised by an FCA-regulated adviser, are trying to bring complaints against their SIPP administrators. But you don't need to go down that route as you were advised by an FCA-regulated adviser. As it stands, whether SIPP administrators (Curtis Banks) are liable in this situation is unclear. Whether FCA-regulated advisers (Portafina) are liable for bad advice is totally 100% clear - they are.

What exactly are the investments you hold via Curtis Banks? It may help others who are in a similar position to be able to find this thread.

Suzid1957

As I understand it. The bulk of the investment which is over £100000 is with Hypa Asia and Hypa raithwaite. Is this what you wanted to know