A ruling in a small claims court has effectively given the green light for time-barred endowment complainants to take their cases to court after ruling that a red letter provided insufficient warning to a policyholder.
In March, a judge at Reigate county court ruled that endowment policyholder Vincent Cunningham, who was time-barred under FOS rules, was not statute-barred from making a complaint under the Limitation Act. This gives customers three years to make a complaint from when they are given reasonable notice of a loss caused by misselling. Court notes released last week, the judge said Friends Provident, which admitted misselling the policy, breached its duty of care by not providing sufficient warning in an endowment red letter. The judge said the letter, sent on August 8, 2000, did not state the possibility the claimant could have been missold a policy and was not sufficient to set a three-year time limit in motion. The judge said Cunningham, who was complaining about the amount of redress he got for a missold endowment policy, was not barred under general law from making his claim even though it had been more than three years since he received a red letter. The FSA says it is unlikely the issue would happen again. with revised letters that have been sent out since 2004 but the case has prompted concerns that time-barred complainants will take legal action. Adam Samuel Training and Consulting principal Adam Samuel says: “This does not create a legal precedent but does show that many cases that were time-barred by these early letters should never have been time-barred in the first place.”Recommended
Butterfield triples loan deal for divorce service
Butterfield Private Bank has relaunched its loan service for divorce cases. It aims to help with payment of legal fees and living expenses during divorce proceedings. Butterfield has increased the maximum amount of funds available from 50,000 to 150,000. The launch comes in the week that the Law Lords set a legal pre-cedent by awarding […]
This week in Politics
Following on from last week’s ‘Money isn’t everything’ speech from David Cameron Shadow Chancellor George Osborne moved further away from traditional perceptions of the Tory Party telling the BBC the next Conservative manifesto will not pledge tax cuts.
Lenders predict BTL boost
UCB Home Loans and Alliance & Leicester are forecasting strong growth for the buy-to-let market this year. Research by A&L shows that the market has grown by nearly 20 per cent in the last two years and over three quarters of brokers have seen a rise in BTL transactions in the past three years. However, […]
The lady loves spilt tray
The lovely Jemma Jackson from the Association of Investment Trust Companies was given a shock as she conversed with an MM hack at the recent F&C party. The pair, both gesticulating wildly, managed to tip a waiter’s tray not towards him, as the laws of physics might indicate, but all over themselves. The lively pair […]
Value remains within European equities
By Rob Burnett, Neptune European Opportunities Fund
In recent months, investors have become more pessimistic about both the European and the US economic outlook and yet stockmarkets have pushed on to new highs. Some would argue that this is a worrying divergence. We would take the opposite view. This appears to be classic bull market behaviour. A wall of worry has been rebuilt, and stockmarket resilience should be taken as a sign of strength. The market is discounting an improving economic outlook ahead, particularly in the south of Europe.
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