The German Property Group
/Dolphin Capital

The German Property Group (GPG) – formerly Dolphin Trust and Dolphin Capital GmbH – was an unregulated property investment scheme, specialising in the purchase of listed German buildings and refurbishing them into luxury apartments.

It promised highly lucrative returns on investments. Typically, it offered loan notes providing fixed returns of between 10% and 15% up to a term of 5 years. However, Oakwood Solicitors have also come across investors who were promised returns of 50% on their investment.

Early investors were repaid promptly encouraging them to re-invest.

In recent years, speculation that GPG were in financial difficulty started to circulate. This started when GPG failed to make loan note payments to its investors on time, and those investors who were reaching the end of their fixed term were unable to withdraw their money.

BBC Investigation

In 2019 a BBC investigation revealed that The German Property Group which borrowed an estimated £600m from UK investors, mostly from the life savings of hard working people were months late in paying some of them back.

On the 8th October 2020, in the most recent blow to investors, the FCA, Financial Ombudsman and the FSCS issued a joint statement about GPG Companies (formerly known as Dolphin Capital / Dolphin Trust) confirming that they have entered preliminary bankruptcy proceedings in Germany.

The FCA has warned that any UK money invested in these schemes are now at risk, and is calling on investors to take action as soon as possible to recover as much of their money as possible.

If you had an investment with German Property Group, then the likelihood is that you will have lost money and could be entitled to compensation.

The first step should be to contact a specialist firm like Oakwood Solicitors who will investigate your pension free of charge and advise you if you have a claim. If you have a claim then Oakwood Solicitors will handle the whole claims process for you and will offer advice, support, and guidance every step of the way.

Oakwood Solicitors will act on your behalf on a ‘no-win, no-fee’ basis, giving you complete peace of mind that you will only pay a fee if your claim is successful.
If after investigating your pension we confirm that there is no loss, then you will have the reassurance that your pension is safe and secure and will have obtained this reassurance completely free of charge.

If you prefer, you can raise an initial complaint with the IFA or SIPP provider yourself but many people prefer to instruct a specialist firm with experience of handling SIPP complaints to ensure they achieve the best possible outcome in the shortest timeframe.

If the adviser who sold you the investment is no longer trading or does not have the financial means to pay you compensation then the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (‘FSCS’) assumes responsibility for the adviser and will be responsible for the payment of compensation.

Pensions are complex. To be able to identify a problem with your pension, first of all you have to know what you are looking for. Once you have identified the issue, you then need to be able to articulate the problem with reference to any legal or regulatory frameworks.

By using a solicitor who is a specialist in pension mis-selling you will ensure that you put your best case forward and maximise your chance of success.

We have seen numerous cases in the past where mis-selling victims have pursued a legitimate claim themselves, only to have it turned down due to a technicality or because key grounds have not been particularised.

You have a higher chance of success by working with a Solicitor, who will ensure that there are no technical grounds for turning down your claim and put you in the best possible position to receive what you are owed.

We are a Regulated firm of Solicitors with over 15 years’ experience in financial mis-selling claims.

We have successfully recovered in excess of £1.6 Million in the last 12 months.

We take the hassle out of the claims process as we do all the hard work for you. We will complete all the necessary paperwork and obtain all the required documentation to support your claim.

You will be allocated your own experienced pension claims handler who will keep you fully informed throughout the whole process.

We cannot provide an exact figure for how much compensation you will receive until we understand more about your claim.

The general purpose of a claim is to put you back in the position you would have been in, had you not received the negligent pension advice.

Any claim made to the FSCS will be capped at £85,000.00 per person, per advisor.

We operate on a Damages Based Agreement (“DBA”) more commonly known as a ‘no-win, no-fee’ agreement. If we fail to secure you a settlement, you will not be charged.

As the claim is being made against the FSCS then we would expect the claim to be concluded within 12 months.

As each case is unique it is difficult to provide a generic timeframe for conclusion of the claim however Oakwood Solicitors will give you an indication of how long your claim is likely to take to conclude as part of our initial review.