Capital & Income Solutions | Successful win of £85,000

Amount won: £ 85,000

Employer/Fund: Lothian Pension Fund

FA Firm: Capital & Income Solutions

Introduction:

Our client contacted us to investigate a claim for a mis-sold pension after seeing an article on our website.

She was advised to transfer her Lothian Pension Fund pension and an Aviva Stakeholder pension into a Standard Life pension plan by Mike Connelly of The Mortgage Finance Store and Capital & Income Solutions.

The Background:

Our client had previously worked for the local council for 34 years. She had a deferred defined benefit final salary pension with a value of £272,952.13 and a personal pension with a value of £13,395.35.

She contacted Mike Connelly, after looking on-line for a mortgage broker, for assistance with converting their interest only mortgage to a repayment mortgage.

Mike Connelly visited her at home and after he established that she was to be turning 55 the following year he asked what pensions she had. He then advised she should transfer both her Lothian Pension Fund pension and Aviva pension to a Standard Life pension plan. He said that by moving them into a personal pension this would allow her to access her tax-free lump sum earlier and this would allow her to repay her mortgage.

Our client was financially inexperienced and believed Mike Connelly was both fully qualified to give this advice and acting in her best interests.

The Consequences:

• Our client was not advised of the valuable benefits and guarantees she was giving up by transferring away from the Lothian Pension Fund pension.
• She would no longer have an inflation proof pension and it would now be subject to the volatility of the market.
• Her pension could run out and she would have to pay fund fees until this time or until the day she died.
• She was promised on-going advice as part of the 5% initial fee that she paid but she never heard from Mike Connelly again, nor was anyone from Capital & Income Solutions in touch.

Our client paid the following fees:

• Adviser fees of circa £14310
• Ongoing fund fees 0.5%

Mike Connelly was not authorised or regulated to give pension transfer advice. He completely failed to mention the involvement of Capital & Income Solutions, the regulated company he used to sign off the pension transfer. Our client never spoke to a representative of that firm or received a suitability from them covering the pension transfer advice.

Capital & Income Solutions are now in liquidation.

The Settlement:

After obtaining our clients files from her previous and existing pension providers we determined that she had a claim. We submitted the claim with substantial evidence to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), as Capital & Income Solutions are now in liquidation.

The FSCS calculated our client’s losses at an astonishing £277,278.03.

Our client received the maximum compensation of £85,000 for the pension transfer advice she received. However, this covered only circa 31% of her total losses which means she faces a less comfortable and secure retirement than she would have done had she not acted on the advice given to her to transfer her pensions and this is therefore a matter of great upset, regret and annoyance to our client.

The compensation was paid directly into her bank account.