Poorly performing investment from Barclays - is there anything that can be done now?

Ash_Pole

Many years ago (maybe 25) my dad put some money into an investment portfolio with Barclay's private banking arm. He passed away soon after and my mum became the owner. She died 3 years ago, and the value of this portfolio (around 70k) was little different to what it was when it was taken out (it didn't pay out any income).

It's been nagging me that the charges on this were relatively high, and each year they would send out a thick, glossy brochure showing how the money was invested. Barclays made a fair amount of money out of this. My mum and dad, nothing.

My dad was relatively unsophisticated and I have no doubt he would have been talked into this investment, but I have no way of proving that. This might be a bit of a longshot, but is there anything that can be done now?

Thrugelmir

Not your opinion that matters. It's hard facts.  Nor is there any value in comparing the world of investment that exists today with that of era's of the past. Very very different. 

El_Torro

What do you want to do now? Of course one thing that can be done is to move the investments elsewhere, it's not clear from your post whether you've done this already or not.

If what you want is compensation for many years of under performance / high charges, then I suspect you are likely to be disappointed. Presumably the investment could have been moved at any point in the last 25 years so nobody forced your dad and mum to keep the investment.

dunstonh

My dad was relatively unsophisticated and I have no doubt he would have been talked into this investment, but I have no way of proving that. 

Of course your dad was talked into it.  If he knew what he was doing he wouldn't use a bank's private banking service.  They are generally expensive and low quality across the board.  Banks have never been a good option on the investment front.   However, that does not mean they are doing anything wrong.    Anybody that signs up for anything has been persuaded to buy into that. Sometimes passively. Sometimes actively. 

, and the value of this portfolio (around 70k) was little different to what it was when it was taken out (it didn't pay out any income).

It is unlikely you have all the facts.  Private banking is not very good but it would have given sufficient returns over a 22 year period to be in surplus.   Possibly not a lot because of the dot.com crash before he started (loss period of around 45% over 3 years which would have taken another 5 years to recover and then along came the credit crunch which took another 3 years to recover but the last decade has been very good).   Whilst no income that you can see was being taken, it may have been earlier or there may have been withdrawals.

Malthusian

Assuming you are the executor of your mother's estate, the only thing you can do at this point is ask Barclays for a complete transaction history as her representative. (If she was your father's executor, you should be able to ask for the history going back to your dad's ownership as the chain of representation passes to you.)

It seems very unlikely that an investment portfolio taken out 25 years ago and never touched by the owners would not show any growth in that time. In the absence of further info the most likely explanation is withdrawals that you are unaware of. 

A complaint on the basis that Barclays hadn't performed better would fail and a more valid complaint could still fail on the basis that it is timebarred. So you would need some solid grounds for a complaint.