Are you caught up in the pension mis-selling scandal? These 4 questions can help you get answers

If you have a SIPP, you might want to get it checked out

SIPPs are currently at the centre of the pension mis-selling scandal, The thing about SIPPs (that’s a Self-Invested Personal Pension), is that they can hold a wide range of investments.

But not all investments are equal when it comes to risk, and so a mis-sold pension is often a mis-sold SIPP arrangement, stuffed with investments that are too risky for you, either because you’re not earning enough, or because you don’t have the experience to run your own pension fund.

Question 1: Are You A High Net Worth Individual?

That’s somebody who either earns over £100,000 per year, or has £250k worth of investible assets, not including their home or their pension.

Not you? Move on to next question

Question 2: Are you a Sophisticated Investor?

That’s somebody with a lot of knowledge AND experience about investing. Not many really fit this description, and if you’ve got a SIPP and aren’t a SI, then move to question 3…

Question 3: Are you invested in any of the following?

The following are just some of the most common high-risk investments the team at Spencer Churchill Claims Advice find in people’s SIPPs on a regular basis:

Overseas Property and Hotel Investments
Forestry and Farming Investments
Unbuilt Land
Minibonds
Commercial/residential property investments
CFDs (Contracts For Difference)
Carbon Credits
Green Oil/Bio Fuels
Green Energy

This isn’t and exhaustive list – there are lots of high-risk SIPP investments out there that can trap your money in illiquid assets, often not regulated by the FCA, with nobody looking over their shoulder to make sure things are being done right with your money. Unless you are a sophisticated investor, or a high net-worth individual, your adviser may have broken the rules by advised you to go ahead and transfer your pension into a SIPP, putting you at way more risk than you might have been told about!

Not got any of these? Well, the scandal is still developing, so we’ve got one more question…

Question 4: Do you have a DFM?

Discretionary Fund Management is where you give some of the money in your SIPP to a DFM, who makes investments on your behalf. But the DFM needs to make sure these investments are suitable for you, and not too risky for your profile! It could be that your DFM has invested in the same stuff we talked about in Question 3, just disguised it through a DFM portfolio with a fancy name!

The FCA is so worried about this practice, it’s calling it a “third generation scam“.

If you’ve got a DFM but aren’t sure what they’ve been investing your money in, it could be worth a phone call to find out!

Still don’t know whether you’ve got a mis-sold pension?

The pension mis-selling scandal seems to be growing year on year, with the FSCS increasing the amount of compensation paid out regarding SIPPs to £105MILLION last year.

But part of the problem with a mis-sold pension is that they can be hard to spot if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and are able to see through the sometimes complex jargon of the industry.

That’s why the team at Spencer Churchill Claims Advice offer a FREE initial assessment of your SIPP or SSAS pension arrangements, where we’ll look at what your investments are, and the advice that got you there in the first place to see if you can make a claim!

Then it’s up to you what you do next, but if you want to use Spencer Churchill Claims Advice’s years of experience, knowledge and winning strategy, we can proceed with your claim on a NO WIN – NO FEE* basis to try to recover your mis-sold retirement fund.

Don’t let a mis-sold pension take away your hard-earned retirement, Spencer Churchill Claims Advice – just use our Pension Advice Checker to get in touch!

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Spencer Churchill Claims Advice are leading specialists in mis-sold pensions and investments, recovering
£millions in compensation for our clients

*NO WIN – NO FEE: 14 day cooling off period, Success Fee payable, taken from compensation awarded at 24% Inclusive of VAT. Cancellation fee if cancelled after 14 day cooling off, capped at £750.