Evidence of holdings in funds

Ashen

In the event that an investment site, such as AJ Bell, Hargreaves or Halifax Share Dealings folds, what evidence is there of any funds purchased via/with them, such as LifeStrategy funds?

Apologies if this is a silly question, but just wondering if I should be recording anything in particular in case somehow such a provider fails.

ColdIron

The Contract Note would be your evidence of purchase. Security, date/time, quantity etc

bowlhead99

ColdIron said:

The Contract Note would be your evidence of purchase. Security, date/time, quantity etc

True, though of course these days people tend to prefer paperless statements and transaction reporting so that actually the provider just emails you a notification that you have a new document to log into the platform and see once securely logged in.  If all your statements and transaction confirmations are hosted on the platform and the platform fails, you still don't have a record for yourself, so it makes sense to save them off and put them in cloud storage or have copies in a file at home or wherever you keep your financial records.

Even the sites that generally only send you a link to your online document may have options that help you get your hands on them without painstakingly logging in and downloading them - for example with some brokers there's an option for them to send all contract notes to your work's compliance department email address  (e.g. because it's part of  your employer's policy on personal account dealing); but you could just give them a personal address instead as a way of avoiding downloading them all manually from the site.

masonic

In the event an investment firm went bust and also irrecoverably destroyed all records of investments held by its clients, then it is doubtful a print-out of any document purportedly issued by the firm would be taken as proof of debt by the Special Administrators. However, if such documents were emailed to you by the company, and the company had DKIM set up, it could be shown that the email messages and attachments could not have been modified by way of the digital signature affixed to the email message. In that case, it would be the email itself you would wish to retain. I suppose even in this case the evidence would be flawed, because it could not be established that the record of holdings reconstructed from the contract notes was a complete record of your trades.

bowlhead99

masonic said:I suppose even in this case the evidence would be flawed, because it could not be established that the record of holdings reconstructed from the contract notes was a complete record of your trades.

It is flawed as 'evidence' of a balance because your evidence presented may show somewhat selectively whatever you want, (e.g.) that you bought 1000 shares and not show that the next day you sold 900 of them so your actual balance is 100 instead of the 1000 you claim it to be.

But if OP you just want your own evidence of what you held so that you know that when the platform reopens or transfers your assets elsewhere you expect to have 1000 shares on it, then keeping personal records of the contract notes and periodic statements is quite useful. 

For example, I know that in one of my accounts at AJ Bell I have 'about £4k worth' of H2O Multireturns and in another account 'about 5k worth', give or take a few hundred quid of rounding on each, probably ~£9k total; but if the administrators asked me to confirm my holdings of 2,122.307 and 2,375.828 respectively, I would have no idea if those specific numbers are accurate, without checking my last downloaded statement and the contract notes to confirm that they were.

As the contract notes for the tax wrapped accounts aren't something I need for my tax return, I don't actually have them saved off - but I generally have a recent portfolio summary in spreadsheet format.

masonic

bowlhead99 said:

As the contract notes for the tax wrapped accounts aren't something I need for my tax return, I don't actually have them saved off - but I generally have a recent portfolio summary in spreadsheet format.

Yes, I usually do a portfolio export whenever my holdings change so I can keep track in a spreadsheet. This would be my preferred option for verifying what I was holding at the time my investment platform went pop.

Albermarle

In fact if you have a pension with a boring old insurer like Standard Life , if you change your fund holdings they send you ( by post) a new list of your holdings . Also my ( slightly staid ) SIPP provider ( Fidelity) issue  quarterly statements  of my holdings and they are happy to send it by post for no charge . Mostly I am paperless but in this case I am happy to be sent a hard copy by post.

Ashen

Thanks for the replies. I've also just seen and skimmed the SVS thread, I guess in practice that's how it likely would go.

Albermarle

AJ Bell, Hargreaves or Halifax Share Dealings

Although the chances of the above three following in SVS footsteps seems pretty remote .