Partially upheld: Investment mis-selling complaint against Charteris Treasury Portfolio Managers Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs C complained that Charteris continued collecting annual management charges after she revoked its discretionary investment management permissions in April 2024. In May 2024, while Mrs C and her husband were abroad, Charteris sold investments from the husband's account without permission to fund income payments, acknowledging it had failed to update its records. The ombudsman found this error caused Mrs C distress and awarded £150 compensation, but upheld Charteris's right to continue collecting agreed fees as Mrs C's subsequent conduct demonstrated she expected the management relationship to continue on a non-discretionary basis, which Charteris correctly implemented in September 2024.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Charteris made a clear error in failing to update its records and selling investments without permission on the husband's account, this caused distress and inconvenience to Mrs C as she and her husband mirrored investment approaches and were on holiday when notified. However, the ombudsman determined that Mrs C's revocation of discretionary permissions did not terminate her entire relationship with Charteris, as evidenced by her subsequent instruction that Charteris contact them for permission on future transactions, which Charteris correctly followed in September 2024. The work performed by Charteris remained broadly similar despite the additional administrative step of seeking permission, therefore continued collection of agreed fees was reasonable.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website