I used to be with SJP with a modest pension (I moved about 18 months ago after being with them for 20+ years – not sure of the actual start date, but I was with an IFA who joined them and took the pensions with him IIRC). Recently, I have heard a few No Win No Fee type radio ads about claiming compensation for the excessive (and not transparent) fees that SJP and/or their agents have been known to have charged. Has anyone been through the process and, if so, was it worth it? Did you do it yourself or get one of those law firms to do the leg-work for you?
Thank you
I'd save yourself 30% of whatever may be owed to you and fill out this form
Ahh cool – thank you. I shall fill that in and see what happens 🙂
Thread resurrection! So I contacted SJP following IHN's advice a while ago and they have just got back to me saying they didn't charge any fees, which I challenged (I asked for annual account statements for the period covered). They came back saying they hadn't charged an Ongoing Advice Charge, and that I have no further claim. However, the report shows an 'annual management charge' and 'ongoing fund' with an average annual percentage charge of 1.69% on the fund.
So – should I pursue further? Should I speak to a 'no win' solicitor now? It won't be a huge amount for me (the fund wasn't worth that much unfortunately), but I received next to no advice from them at all, with only one contact they made in the last 10+ years, which was in 2021 IIRC.
No, nearly all providers have seprate plan and investment charges for the administrateive cost of the (pension) wrapper and the cost of running of the investment fund, its standard. Your only claim would be in relation to eccessive ongoing advice charges where they were providing little or no service in exchange for these costs.
Interesting. I'm not quite sure how they can say they didn't charge an OAC when it was baked into the overall fee you paid (this was, as I understand it, one of the nubs of the problem; the charges were opaque).
You might want to hop on over to MSE, you might get a steer there.
St James's Place - Unused Ongoing Advice Charges (OAC)? — MoneySavingExpert Forum
And I'll try to remember to have a chat with MrsIHN about it, she understand it better than me.
The OAC wasnt baked in, it just wasnt transparent as they formerly lumped or bundled the charges together into a single figure. Since last year its separated into the 3 elements or 2 in the OPs case.
Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing - historically the charges were opaque as they just charged a single amount, but this amount was comprised of the OAC, AMC and fund charge.
TBH, if the overall figure was 'only' 1.69%, then there's a good chance that they're right and there wasn't an OAC, as 1.69% sounds about right as the sum of the AMC and fund charges as SJP's fees AMC/fund fees were high. Do they breakdown the 1.69% into it's constituent parts?