Final Salary Pension Transfer

Silvertabby

Marcon said:

Gaily123 said:

DB Pension transfer redress
I have recently been awarded an upheld complaint against an IFA for poor advice given to transfer by DB pension. The transfer was made approx 3 years ago, and since then I have withdrawn all the money and the SIPP is now zero.  does this affect whether or not I will receive redress?

It certainly won't work in your favour - and may give the adviser grounds for appeal.

Marcon is right.  If your reason for the transfer was just to cash in the total benefits, then it appears that you achieved your aim.

Marcon

Silvertabby said:

Marcon said:

Gaily123 said:

DB Pension transfer redress
I have recently been awarded an upheld complaint against an IFA for poor advice given to transfer by DB pension. The transfer was made approx 3 years ago, and since then I have withdrawn all the money and the SIPP is now zero.  does this affect whether or not I will receive redress?

It certainly won't work in your favour - and may give the adviser grounds for appeal.

Marcon is right.  If your reason for the transfer was just to cash in the total benefits, then it appears that you achieved your aim.

Indeed - and I've just been involved in what sounds like a possibly similar case, given how few facts Gaily has given, where the adviser appealed successfully. As always, cases are distinguished on the facts, but accessing and promptly spending the whole lot doesn't bode well for redress. If advice was needed it means the transfer was upwards of £30K, so not exactly peanuts to spend in a 3 year period.

Pat38493

Marcon said:

Silvertabby said:

Marcon said:

Gaily123 said:

DB Pension transfer redress
I have recently been awarded an upheld complaint against an IFA for poor advice given to transfer by DB pension. The transfer was made approx 3 years ago, and since then I have withdrawn all the money and the SIPP is now zero.  does this affect whether or not I will receive redress?

It certainly won't work in your favour - and may give the adviser grounds for appeal.

Marcon is right.  If your reason for the transfer was just to cash in the total benefits, then it appears that you achieved your aim.

Indeed - and I've just been involved in what sounds like a possibly similar case, given how few facts Gaily has given, where the adviser appealed successfully. As always, cases are distinguished on the facts, but accessing and promptly spending the whole lot doesn't bode well for redress. If advice was needed it means the transfer was upwards of £30K, so not exactly peanuts to spend in a 3 year period.

I'm curious why that would even be relevant.  I would have thought that it would be based on whether the advice was good or not, based on the information available to the IFA at the time.  For example if you told the IFA you were going to invest the money or whatever, but you then used it to buy a Bentley, that doesn't mean the original advice was good as it would have been based on whatever the IFA was told?

Gaily123

the funds were accessed initially as I had taken the decision to remain abroad and subsequently needed cash ( due to marriage difficulties ) This was not discussed with the IFA as was not relevant at the time. I merely figured that the small amount of pension £4000 would be better invested as a lump sum  My understanding was that the IFAs role was to advise me on the best way forward and the Ombudsman's findings were that this was not the correct advice.

QrizB

Gaily123 said:

My understanding was that the IFAs role was to advise me on the best way forward and the Ombudsman's findings were that this was not the correct advice.

If the Ombudsman has made that ruling, it's likely to be the case.

Are you able to share any more details of the Ombudsman's ruling? It might help answr your question.

Silvertabby

Gaily123 said:

the funds were accessed initially as I had taken the decision to remain abroad and subsequently needed cash ( due to marriage difficulties ) This was not discussed with the IFA as was not relevant at the time. I merely figured that the small amount of pension £4000 would be better invested as a lump sum  My understanding was that the IFAs role was to advise me on the best way forward and the Ombudsman's findings were that this was not the correct advice.

You mean that the DB pension you gave up was £4K per annum, not that the transferred sum was £4K?

I must admit, I'm at a loss to understand how you can claim that the IFA gave you bad advice when you admit that you didn't give him/her all the facts........

Gaily123

No , the £4.000 was the annual pension I would have received from the age of 60 - the cetv was over £65,000. The ifa was told that I wanted flexibility and access to funds in my pension however the Ombudsman did not agree this was reason enough to transfer. There were other reasons including contradictions in attitudes to risk that the ombudman disagreed with. I only ended up putting a complaint in after I received a letter from the ifa suggesting they were being asked to review cases of db transfers 

Qyburn

So what was your actual complaint? Did the IFA advise transfer, and you now think you'd have been better off not transferring? If you hadn't transferred where would you have found the  £65K you needed to spend in the last three years?

L9XSS

Cow, market, magic beans springs to mind.....Seriously though it would be interesting to know how the case progresses. Do you expect from the upheld complaint “to be put back in the position before the DB transfer out.”

Silvertabby

A cetv of £65K from an annual pension of £4K is a shockingly low figure.  Am guessing that this may be just one of reasons why your IFA is getting his/her knuckles rapped for agreeing to the transfer.  But, please be honest here, if they hadn't recommended the transfer, what would you have done?  Complained to these boards about being denied access to 'your' money?