Healys are experts in dealing with IFA Professional Negligence Claims, contact us today. We offer free initial advice on your claim and, if you wish to proceed, we offer a “No Win No Fee” service in the form of a Conditional Fee Agreement.
I approached Robert Johnson of Healys on behalf of my 89 year old father in law who had been the victim of poor advice from an IFA. Robert immediately understood all of the issues and set out the options and pitfalls in very clear language that we could both easily understand. I would not hesitate to recommend Robert for any IFA related matters.
Andrew Roberts
Independent financial advisors (IFAs) are regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and are bound by a strict code of conduct. The FSA was established to protect the rights of investors and to ensure that finance professionals act with integrity by providing sound, honest and suitable financial advice to clients. In cases where negligence occurs, it may be possible for the client to make an IFA professional negligence claims.
Choosing a Regulated Firm
The FSA provides a helpful register of FSA-regulated firms and individuals .
Choosing an advisor regulated by the FSA is an important first step to ensuring the right advice.
Making a Complaint
All IFAs should have a stringent and client-friendly internal complaints process. Sadly, however, this is not always the case. Those clients who receive no satisfaction from the internal complaints procedure may take their cases to the Financial Services Ombudsman , which will, if necessary, conduct an independent investigation and award compensation where appropriate.
IFA Professional Negligence Claims, How To Prove Negligence?
Losing money on an investment will not, in isolation, give grounds for a successful compensation claim. Even if an investment has lost significant value, if the IFA in question has followed the financial regulator’s code of practise, acted competently and represented the client’s best interests in an honest and suitable way, there will be no grounds for an IFA professional negligence claim.
We would like to thank you for all your assistance in our recent legal matter. We greatly appreciated your sound advice and all the work you did in ensuring that our interests were protected. You also explained matters to us with great clarity and ensured that we understood everything. The costs were very reasonable and we will certainly recommend you to our friends and colleagues.
Joanna McKenna
In general terms, the test for IFA negligence is whether the advice was of a standard that would be expected of a reasonably competent and diligent professional. Furthermore, for a claim to proceed it must be proved that the client suffered significant financial loss.
All IFAs have a duty of care to their clients. As such, if they falsely or negligently represent their services and the terms of investments, clients may have grounds to recover any consequent losses.
The following are some examples of cases where valid grounds for a negligence claim against an independent financial advisor may arise:
- If an IFA fails to disclose its own financial interest in a transaction or recommendation, such as receipt of payment or commission for the selling of particular services;
- Where the investment has been misrepresented, leading the client to make a decision based on incorrect information;
- Where the advice has been unsuitable to the individual client, whose requirements have not been considered;
- If the IFA has offered unrealistic guarantees on an investment’s performance;
- If the IFA did not fully explain the risks involved;
- If the IFA did not disclose a conflict of interest.
Advice on IFA Professional Negligence Claims in London & Brighton
The professional negligence lawyers at Healys work to ensure that clients receive clear and in-depth advice about proceeding with an IFA professional negligence claim.
Call our Brighton and London offices today, on 020 7822 4106 or click through to find out more about our individual partners.
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