Pension mis-advice claims going to Rocket

In light of increased focus on Pension Arrangements and all related planning and investment businesses.   Key2Law LLP's claim division expects 1000s of enquiries from future and potentially dissatisfied and misled pension plan beneficiaries.   The burden of the regulatory implications are such that Key2Law believe that there are 1000s of  advisory and investment trip wires for an advisor to fall foul of and this means an increase in litigation claims, and increases in Proffesional Indemnity Insurance Premiums.

Key2law LLP has been working in the claims sector for a number of years and has recently taken a major shareholding in Debt Review Ltd (DRL) an established CMC (Claims Management Company) that specialises in European Finanacial Claims and Time Share claims and related Scams.   DRL is authorised by the Ministry of Justice.

Jeremy Bartholomew-White is Director of Legal at DRL as well as a consultant at Key2Law LLP and he stated today that in his opinion the claims sector is entering into a massive growth cycle with specific emphasise on the financial advice sector,     “I expect all types of claims to crawl out of the woodwork as financial services companies scramble to push the blame for poor, inaccurate, mis-leading or negligent advise. We only need look to the Endowment and Payment Protection (PPI) area to see what financial institutions are prepared to do to take money from unsuspecting customers”, he said. 

Pensions are always a topic of discussion and never more so than during this financial quartile, the deeper question within this noise about pensions and the planning for retirement is - do we the public know as much as we should about pension provisioning in order that we can make a proper decision?   After all the rule books that state what we can and cant do and precisely when we can and cannot do it – these manuscripts have become themselves a huge bible of rules and regulations created by the pensions industry together with the influence whatever regulator is cracking the whip at the time.   Each financial advisor employs in one way or another a compliance officer to ensure that no mistakes are made when giving advice and the regulator employs legal executives and enforcement staff in the hundreds to ensure that their member firms (IFA’s) act appropriately when giving advice.   I ask how is the man on the street supposed to make neither head nor tail of the pension bible during the hour or two spent travelling to work crammed into the tube or whilst hacking around the M25 in a golf GTI?

Jeremy Bartholomew-White at DRL agrees and says “there must be a claim or 2million out there”  for example he adds “most people do not know that they can contribute up to 100% of there annual salary into a pension!" Arrh yes but how do we live I hear? "Oh you can borrow that money and get full relief on it say 40%ish whilst paying about 3% interest on the 60% net borrowed contribution!"   how can i borrow that?  "Easy you can secure it against your Pension Fund that is growing at a rate greater (hopefully) than 3% on 100% of the fund created by 100% Salary gross contribution, didn’t you know?”  he says rastonishingly

Confused? Read again - its fact and if you didn’t know it then why not?  haven’t you been told? - if not why not? Who is responsible? for not telling you?  your are supposed to know!   Now there is a thought, and maybe a claim Mr Jeremy Bartholomew White at Key2Law LLP / DebtReview