What is St James’s Place Wealth Management?
St James’s Place (SJP) is a wealth management company which is there to help you manage your finances in the best way possible. This could be providing guidance on where to invest your money, or how to plan your finances for the future.
Unexplainable fees
Clients believe they are not getting the financial advice or service that they have been paying for.
St James’s Place have just lost nearly a fifth of their value and have now set aside nearly half a billion pounds to pay back their customers. Customers have complained that they are dissatisfied by the companies service, and are questioning if they have been over paying the advice fees due to lack of contact.
Claims management firms began to target St James’s Place last year, suggesting that clients had been charged annual fees despite not having spoken to an adviser for a long time.
Fees and figures
SJP has annual fees for both advice and the cost of investments it recommends, the estimates vary from 1.25 to 2.3%.
The initial fee is more than twice the industry average and figures show that 80% of the funds at St James Place performed worse than half the same sector over the space of 10 years.
St. James’s Place changed their fees last October after The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) put some pressure on them, they announced that they was getting rid of the exit fees on new pension and bond investments, which customers paid when exiting products early, and capped advice fees and fund charges.
The full process of its new charging model will take until the second half of 2025 to fully implement, and will cost up to £160m.
The company confirmed that it would be allocating £426m to pay refunds to affected clients, who had been paying for advice without getting the full service.
The wealth manager charged an “all-inclusive” fee, which was not separated into its different categories, clients did not realise they were paying for advice that they weren’t actually getting. The fees will be more clearly laid out in the new structure – into advice, product or platform, and fund charges.
Customers of St James’s Place who have not received advice in the past 18 months should look into whether they have been overpaying advice fees, as you may be eligible for a refund.
Can I claim?
If you think you may be affected by this, you should try and calculate how much contact you have had with your adviser over the years. You may have been offered a meeting or call but turned it down or cancelled it. It is not certain that St James’s Place would accept this when it comes to a refund.
However, if they have not contacted you at all over a certain period of time to check that your circumstances, objectives or risk appetite is still the same or has changed, you may be owed a refund. Refunds will likely be based on how many years a customer had not spoken to an adviser.
Another factor to look out for is poor advice, if you feel you have experienced one of the below you may be eligible to make a claim:
- If you feel you were given bad or unsuitable advice
- Are paying for a service you have not received
- Hadn’t had the risks properly explained to you
- Weren’t told about additional fees
- Were not given the full information needed when you took out the financial product, so ended up with something unsuitable
Further reading
St James’s Place Wealth Management to pay back clients up to £426million – Oakwood Solicitors
St James’s Place Wealth Management – Oakwood Solicitors
WHAT TO DO NEXT
Get in touch today for a no-obligation consultation. Choose one of the methods on the right-hand side of this page, or call us on 0113 200 9720 to find out how we can help you.
Katie Whapham is currently working as a legal assistant in the Finance Litigation Department. Initially, Katie was part of the administration and new enquiries team when she joined Oakwood Solicitors …
