Who to pursue? IFA or Company

Yorkie1

Perhaps look at the structure and/or phrasing that the FOS has used in its outcomes, identify those which apply to your facts, and use them as a basis for what you draft?

Frodo1032

Yorkie1 said:

Perhaps look at the structure and/or phrasing that the FOS has used in its outcomes, identify those which apply to your facts, and use them as a basis for what you draft?

Hello, yes I am looking through them now, some are quite a heavy read. As dunstonh says I will keep the complaint first contact email simple and then I suspect it will be back and forth with Quilter for more details, and yes will look at the FOS judgements for the correct phrases to use to explain my position for every question they will ask.

Will send out first thing Monday and then will contact Transact to stop contact and charges with my IFA and will transfer it elsewhere.

dunstonh

Will send out first thing Monday and then will contact Transact to stop contact and charges with my IFA and will transfer it elsewhere.

Transact is a good platform.    Not the cheapest (although better with higher values) but in the right ballpark. You don't need to transfer it.  It can sit there until you make a decision on what happens next.

 dunstonh says I will keep the complaint first contact email simple and then I suspect it will be back and forth with Quilter for more details

Don't over complicate it.    Effectively, you were sold an extremely high risk unregulated investment that was unsuitable for retail clients.     You wouldn't use the phrase retail client as that would be unnatural to you but that is how Quilter and the FOS (if FOS become necessary) will treat you.   In very simple terms, a retail client is a mainstream client with mainstream needs who should have mainstream solutions.     So, that is how you refer to yourself.      Say something along the lines that you have become aware that the investment was very high risk, unregulated and not something I should have been advised to have.      Then give a bit of your investing history.  For..g if you had a very simple pension fund in the past in a balanced managed fund or with a profits fund, then make reference to you never having used any unusual investments previously and that you were totally reliant on the adviser telling you what to invest in.

And to be honest, that is all you really need to say.  Quilter will be obliged to refer the complaint on the evidence available and unless they find that you are not a retail client or have a history of using high risk unregulated investments, they will pretty much have to uphold the complaint.  if they don't you can see the FOS almost certainly will.

Unless the percentage of the unregulated investment was very small and it was a dabble, your expectation would be for the complaint to be upheld with very little effort on your part.

Do not under any circumstances try to use legal speak of quotes acts of law or things like in your complaint.  You are a normal consumer who should have had simple products and simple investment options.   That is how you want to come across.

Frodo1032

dunstonh said:

Will send out first thing Monday and then will contact Transact to stop contact and charges with my IFA and will transfer it elsewhere.

Transact is a good platform.    Not the cheapest (although better with higher values) but in the right ballpark. You don't need to transfer it.  It can sit there until you make a decision on what happens next.

Understood but this is something I will want to put behind me, logging into Transact will just be a reminder every time. Transact will still remain open even if I do transfer as there are some other property funds in there that have yet to mature or impossible to sell and cannot be transferred over as the other platform would not accept them, which is fine. I'll include these funds in the complaint as they were during Positive Solutions time as well.

 dunstonh says I will keep the complaint first contact email simple and then I suspect it will be back and forth with Quilter for more details

Don't over complicate it.    Effectively, you were sold an extremely high risk unregulated investment that was unsuitable for retail clients.     You wouldn't use the phrase retail client as that would be unnatural to you but that is how Quilter and the FOS (if FOS become necessary) will treat you.   In very simple terms, a retail client is a mainstream client with mainstream needs who should have mainstream solutions.     So, that is how you refer to yourself.      Say something along the lines that you have become aware that the investment was very high risk, unregulated and not something I should have been advised to have.      Then give a bit of your investing history.  For..g if you had a very simple pension fund in the past in a balanced managed fund or with a profits fund, then make reference to you never having used any unusual investments previously and that you were totally reliant on the adviser telling you what to invest in.

And to be honest, that is all you really need to say.  Quilter will be obliged to refer the complaint on the evidence available and unless they find that you are not a retail client or have a history of using high risk unregulated investments, they will pretty much have to uphold the complaint.  if they don't you can see the FOS almost certainly will.

Unless the percentage of the unregulated investment was very small and it was a dabble, your expectation would be for the complaint to be upheld with very little effort on your part.

Do not under any circumstances try to use legal speak of quotes acts of law or things like in your complaint.  You are a normal consumer who should have had simple products and simple investment options.   That is how you want to come across.

Understood, I will also list all the property funds in the complaint along with dates  and value purchased, pension/ISA provider, as well, along with the name of the advisor.

Frodo1032

So to give an update, Quilter have come back to me to say they don't want to investigate this as it is "time barred"

Apparently I should have known about the issues with the funds many years ago and have complained within 3 years of knowing, as early as 2012!

Well I certainly don't accept that as the ifa I now know was very controlling with the information he gave, said the losses were normal, and clearly omitted to mention certain things that had happened with the funds that Quilter said I would have known about.

Not quite sure how to respond to them, is it reasonable to say I only found out in January 2025 because of a FT article printed in 2022?

cfw1994

I am sure a wiser person than me will reply, but you also mentioned your FA (please, drop the ‘I’ 😉) never really gave you any updates on the funds and brushed it over when you asked him for them.  That, combined with you only becoming aware in 2022, sounds reason to push back to me 🤷‍♂️

dunstonh

So to give an update, Quilter have come back to me to say they don't want to investigate this as it is "time barred".

Apparently I should have known about the issues with the funds many years ago and have complained within 3 years of knowing, as early as 2012!

That was a possible outcome.  You have to complain with 6 years of the event or three years of being reasonably aware of an issue.

Well I certainly don't accept that as the ifa I now know was very controlling with the information he gave, said the losses were normal, and clearly omitted to mention certain things that had happened with the funds that Quilter said I would have known about.

Looking at FOS decisions, some have overruled the time bar, But these were made within 3 years of the fund being placed into liquidation.   The FOS has treated that as the trigger for the 3-year clock.   

I just checked more recent complaints referred to the FOS and they are accepting the timebar if its more than three years after the failure but not if it was less than 3 years.

Marcon

cfw1994 said:

I am sure a wiser person than me will reply, but you also mentioned your FA (please, drop the ‘I’ 😉) never really gave you any updates on the funds and brushed it over when you asked him for them.  That, combined with you only becoming aware in 2022, sounds reason to push back to me 🤷‍♂️

FOS looks at when someone could 'reasonably have been aware'. There was considerable press coverage of this issue, and not just in the 'specialist press'. 

OP might have had a friend who helpfully suggested he'd be entitled to compensation, but the timeframes just don't add up, as dunstonh's research has already highlighted:

dunstonh said:

Well I certainly don't accept that as the ifa I now know was very controlling with the information he gave, said the losses were normal, and clearly omitted to mention certain things that had happened with the funds that Quilter said I would have known about.

Looking at FOS decisions, some have overruled the time bar, But these were made within 3 years of the fund being placed into liquidation.   The FOS has treated that as the trigger for the 3-year clock.   

I just checked more recent complaints referred to the FOS and they are accepting the timebar if its more than three years after the failure but not if it was less than 3 years.

I think it's particularly tough on people who were acting on the basis of advice from an adviser they trusted, but I'm afraid yet again it highlights that sitting back and letting someone else take all responsibility for your actions (or lack of them) will all too often come back to bite you. It's just too easy for complainants to blame someone else - anyone else - for their lack of action.

Frodo1032

dunstonh said:

So to give an update, Quilter have come back to me to say they don't want to investigate this as it is "time barred".

Apparently I should have known about the issues with the funds many years ago and have complained within 3 years of knowing, as early as 2012!

That was a possible outcome.  You have to complain with 6 years of the event or three years of being reasonably aware of an issue.

Well I certainly don't accept that as the ifa I now know was very controlling with the information he gave, said the losses were normal, and clearly omitted to mention certain things that had happened with the funds that Quilter said I would have known about.

Looking at FOS decisions, some have overruled the time bar, But these were made within 3 years of the fund being placed into liquidation.   The FOS has treated that as the trigger for the 3-year clock.   

I just checked more recent complaints referred to the FOS and they are accepting the timebar if its more than three years after the failure but not if it was less than 3 years.

Ah that's a shame. I do have other Stirling Mortimer funds and other property funds that are unregulated and very high risk that are still running as he did put a very large amount of my portfolio into those at that time.

The way Quilter phrased there final letter response makes me think they just want it to go away. They didn't actually mention anything in the letter specifically about time barring of the funds after liquidation.

It should still be worth pursuing I think, should I go to FOS straight from here now?

Probably will need a bit of hand holding which I think the FOS will provide according to there website.

Frodo1032

Back in 2011 my advisor moved from Positive Solutions over to True Potential, stating that they basically provide him with "compliance and technology support."

I want to make a complaint about the advice he gave me at that time, so should that be directed at True Potential ?

I've already contacted the True Potential complaints team but they stated following

"It is possible you may have been given access to a ‘True Potential’ client site despite never having been a client of True Potential Wealth Management (“TPWM”). TPWM are an advisory firm. Some advisory firms, who operate separately to TPWM are authorised to sell and service True Potential Investments products, these firms are Directly Authorised (“DA”), these DA firms have their own Client Site via True Potential Investments so clients can log in as a client of that DA firm to check on their investments and update records etc. "

I was given a True Potential portal login, had a meeting at a True Potential Office, even the email signature of the advisor references True Potential. 

Is there another "True Potential" company out there that I can make a complaint to ?