Folks,
I have an endowment which I believe was mis-sold to me. My grounds for complaint are that no mention of "risk" was made - let alone the relative risks of endowment and repayment mortgages explored. My projected shortfall is some £20,000 on a £47,000 endowment.
Unfortunately, I find I am not even able to start on the standard compaints procedure via the Ombudsman, because I bought my Standard Life policy via a Scottish solicitor (they handle virtually everything to do with house purchase in Scotland - or did back in 1990). Apparently they were unregulated at the time, and are subject now only to a "disciplinary procedure" meeted out by the Scottish Law Society. Maximum compensation they can award is £1,000 - not worth pursuing.
I have the "alternative" of suing the solicitor for negligence - but am advised the standard of proof would be far higher than is currently the norm for such claims. Unless I have something on paper setting out the advice I received, then I have no hope of winning. And of course, the critical advice was purely verbal, and I would have to somehow prove that they failed to say something they should have done. Quite impossible.
Anyone else come up against this problem, and found any way forward?
Richard Hankins