HB, the graph shows the money reaching the platform on 7 January and downhill all the way since then. 

Isa graph.pdf

Thank you for your comments.

I may be naïve but the way I see it is this:

Lets say there is a car that can take 100 gallons of petrol and the owner wants to do a special journey and has just one opportunity to fill up. Lets say the person who filled the car was sloppy therefore 15% of the petrol was lost. This means the person will not be able to make the full journey he intended to.

That's the way I see it but I know plenty think in a different way. If I'm 15% down at the outset then surely this has already reduced the future potential by 15%? 

fees have been deducted but if you see a graph of the investments it has just gone down from the first moment, which brings me back to my initial question of

how responsible is it to place cash in a falling market, and the guy admitted knowing/noticing global markets had been falling since November.

I think we are talking about two different issues. I'm telling you I've made an immediate loss and you're telling me to look at the contract. Whatever he states on paper is meaningless if I have started out on an immediate loss, it's looking like there will be more loss to follow if the rumblings about a recession are correct.

I do have a long "contract".

The fees are 3% upfront and 1% per annum. He offered an annual fee of 0.5% for doing nothing, and 1% for supposedly being on call and visiting me once per annum to discuss the investment.

However, I dont even trust his judgement anymore. I will read through it again at the weekend and see precisely how he has assessed my situation.

I do have the contract letter.

It is worded in a very sly way, he's very keen to charge for services but at the same time has worded everything to absolve responsibility.

It is geared towards 10 years.

I dont know what you want me to find in it as it is quite standard, writing everything we discussed on paper.

He even vaguely alludes to not picking the funds himself, but picking them via Defaqto Engage.

He has written a couple of paragraphs about ethical funds as if I had brought the topic up in the first place but I didn't so I suppose it is just a boilerplate contract. 

What is it that I am supposed to be looking for?

He isn't missing a trick. He has charged the fee upfront and is selling shares on a daily basis to ensure he is gets his 1% fee on an ongoing basis. I can't believe I have to endure these losses when clearly my money has been mismanaged. I dont agree with you - he could easily have told me to wait a couple of months till the markets settle but didnt.

I dont even know if my funds are low, medium or high risk. 

What I meant about timing is how long should I wait before starting a complaint procedure if things dont improve?

I do not need the money just yet.

The funds are on a known platform and I have full access. In theory I could sell up right now without his "permission".

Something they said is that all the funds have stated they are on target for their 5 year projections.

I did complete a questionnaire regarding my attitude to risk and it came out higher than anticipated and at any rate he has treated me as medium risk tolerance rather than low.

I'm considering dropping him to save the 1% annual fee, it just feels like good money after bad. If the funds are on track what would I need him for?

Would this be unwise?

I really feel it was quite sloppy to put cash into a falling market, he admitted he had known markets were dropping globally since November, he didn't tell me this before transferring my money

I kept asking him for log in details to the platform but he did not even acknowledge this request.

It was only when I contacted the platform and they helped me log on that I saw the drop started from the very first moment in January, before Ukraine.

Thanks for your response. I told him I didn't need the money yet and hoped it would increase gradually for when I do need it, say in 10 years. He said in theory I could start drawing down around £10k per annum from the profits in the future. He was recommended to me via a friend who has been with him for around 20 years and said on average his profits, after all costs and taxes have been around 7% per annum. 

But since I'm £15k behind right from the start it seems pretty awful to me. How soon can I expect any upturn and if it just flatlines for say the next 2 or 3 years where do I stand?

I recently engaged a financial advisor to consolidate my pensions and a cash isa, together worth perhaps £120k.

This was invested in January 2022 and has only dropped in value so far.

I have written to them several times but they say things like you need to hold your nerve, it will get better when the situation in Ukraine is resolved etc etc.

I understand all the rationale in that the pension funds would have fallen with my previous pension provider however, to place cash into a falling market is quite reckless.

From the first moment it has only fallen and I've lost approximately £15k since January 2022. I am 64 years of age so don't have a lot of time for this to pick up again and I'm not working, nor am I likely to be offered a job due to my age.

How long should I give it before taking action and what precise action can I take?

Is there any way of recouping my losses from him?

I understand I could take this to the Financial Ombudsman but what would they do?

Hi, sorry I didn't see this before.

No I doubt very much there was a concern about asbestos, although he probably would have said there was just to shut me up.

The electrician was a bit of a sociopath, he told me one lie after another, after another, just so he could do what he wanted. He just laid the cable from A to B with absolutely no concern about anything else due to it being an "emergency". 

I've challenged the managing agents many times but they will not listen to anything I say, will not show me a copy of the insurance policy and furthermore they are going to deduct £500 excess for the whole claim from me.

Around 7 years ago my mother was feeling unwell and had a slight tremor, her GP latched on to the idea she had uti and kept prescribing antibiotics.  This caused huge problems in her health and brought on non-epileptic seizures which she did not have before. Shortly later my mother had a heart attack so clearly her tremor was due to her feeling unwell in the run up to her heart attack.

Needless to say they totally missed the signs that she had a heart condition.  The non epileptic seizures remained for quite some time.  We didn't understand what was happening and took her to so many specialists for a diagnosis and to help cure her from it, which we did eventually but it was a long haul.

My mother now has dementia and is in a care home funded by our borough. Currently the dr affiliated to the care home is insisting they administer memantine which is a drug which supposedly slows down dementia.  My mother took a small dose for about a week and gradually the tremors began again - we know this is the beginning of the non-epileptic seizures so we asked that they take her off the drug. 

This dr is obsessed with memantine and wants to force my mother to have it, even though she is aware of the side effects.  they held a meeting with the person at our borough handling my mother's care and between them they decided it would be in her best interest to administer memantine.  They are relying on the Mental Capacity Act. None of our concerns were taken into consideration.

We do not have a LPA in place.

We do not know what to do next to prevent this travesty taking place. It's as if they are willing to sacrifice all other aspects of my mother's health, perhaps even her life for the sake of giving her memantine. 

Where do we stand and what can we do to prevent this?  

Stu007 thanks for getting back to me. Yes it absolutely is one of the lies the electrician told me and yes, I believe it's an armoured cable, 5cm diameter with clips, its hideous.

Is it true that once an armoured cable is in place nothing can be done?

Stu007, thank you. I've asked the managing agents for the name of the company, if it is even a company. Also the actual insurance policy to see what it says. Will ask for what you mentioned too.

No it's not temporary, they said I could paint it. They were awful. Very dismissive of anything I suggested to make it less obvious. In a square hallway it would have been equidistant if it had gone the other way, and far less obvious but they ignored me. It is running along the top of the wall.

I'm afraid I caused a catastrophic leak in my flat which affected the two flats below me as well as mine to some extent.

There was water damage as well as damage to the original electrical cables. 

Obviously we have building cover for such events but would I be able to make a claim for the issues caused internally? For example now that my fridge freezer is live again, the electrical panel is not working properly so I cannot even change the temperature of the fridge, let alone anything else.

Also while I am not ungrateful that it was dealt with quickly, the electricians who came to fit the new cables have just plonked a thick black cable along one side of my hallway and it is really hideous and an eyesore - I did ask them to lay it in the opposite direction which would have been less noticeable but they ignored me and fobbed me off with a bunch of lies. I feel claustrophobic just looking at it. 

It is so awful that I cannot imagine ever being able to sell my flat at the going rate. 

Do I have any recourse for this or is it set in stone?

I called them today and apparently the partner was hacked! So there's the answer and I'm sorry to have bothered people. Please feel free to delete the post if appropriate.

[email protected]

This is the message, actually there's no sign off

Attached is your past due invoice which requires urgent payment. Kindly pay this invoice to avoid issues Thanks 

The other thing I noticed was when trying to send it to one of my neighbours, it kept bouncing back so maybe her account recognised it as spam/phishing 

Sorry, I deleted my previous question as I realised you said you had dealt direct with Hermes. Anyway try the above

I've copied this advice from a group I'm on on fb - hope this is allowed:

How to get to speak to a person at myhermes - call 03308085456 -

1. Do NOT enter the number of your problem parcel. Instead enter the number of a parcel that has been successfully DELIVERED.

2. Make sure the parcel number you enter is one that has been bought directly from myhermes site.

3. Do NOT enter a packlink one. It will give you the option to "speak to somebody about your parcel"

if you follow steps 1,2 and 3 above and you will then get to hold to speak to a hooman to talk about your problem parcel.

Was this an online sale?

We had a survey and valuation done by a respectable surveyors firm. We paid for it upfront, I think around £3,600 which is no small amount! 

Last week I received an email from a partner in that firm attaching a "pro forma" bill to be paid. I have not been able to open it as it is password protected. It went into my junk folder, I'm wondering if it is even genuine or possibly their account has been hacked. 

Is it even lawful for a firm to hold on to my information this long? Also why wasn't the partner's supposed fees incorporated into the main valuation?  Apart from a sales pitch over the phone before allowing them to do the valuation I cannot say that the partner actually did any work that merits a bill.  

I'm a bit of a coward in dealing with it, I'm half thinking if I ignore it maybe he will just give up. 

However, I really don't know what to do.

I've corrected the year for you.

 

HB

Thank you!!

Thanks, I've looked through this. There is nothing that states it would be time barred and it seems to mostly relate to the timeframe immediately after the disposal of a freehold rather than many years later! That is precisely the information I need - whether we are now time barred.

Just realised I made a mistake in my original post - the freehold was sold in 1997 not 1987.

We are a group of leaseholders who are in the process of trying to enfranchise.

We have just discovered a law whereby the leaseholders are supposed to be offered the first right of refusal if the freehold exchanges hands.

Having done some research, our freehold was sold in 1997 and we were not offered it at all.

Our solicitor seems not to comprehend the significance of this ruling and believes we would only have had the right to pursue this during the first 6 months of having discovered it was sold.

Where do we stand now?

Are we able to go to court and purchase the freehold for the price it exchanged hands in 1997 or thereabouts?

Are we able to use this Ruling to our benefit whilst negotiating with our freeholder on the price of the freehold?

Advice appreciated!

Thanks.

I had a similar experience - will try to pm you.