Partially upheld: incorrect information regarding tax year allocation of pension contribution; genuine error claim rejection complaint against AJ Bell Management Limited
Financial Ombudsman decision DRN-6099034 of 2026-04-08T00:00:00+00:00. incorrect information regarding tax year allocation of pension contribution; genuine error claim rejection complaint against AJ Bell Management Limited. Outcome: Partially upheld.
Decision detail
| Reference | DRN-6099034 |
|---|---|
| Decision date | 2026-04-08T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Firm | AJ Bell Management Limited |
| Product | pension |
| Claim type | incorrect information regarding tax year allocation of pension contribution; genuine error claim rejection |
| Outcome | Partially upheld |
| Remedy | AJ Bell to pay Ms B £250 as distress and inconvenience payment for the incorrect information temporarily displayed on the website. No further action required. |
Summary
Ms B complained that AJ Bell provided incorrect information regarding the tax year allocation of her £49,000 pension contribution, resulting in it being applied to 2025/26 instead of 2024/25 as intended. She made the contribution at 12:10am on 6 April 2025, after the 5 April 2025 deadline for the previous tax year had passed. Although the website initially showed the contribution applied to 2024/25, this was automatically corrected at 1am on 6 April 2025. Ms B did not log into her account until 24 June 2025, well after the 30-day cooling-off period expired, and did not complain until 28 July 2025. The ombudsman upheld the complaint regarding the incorrect information but rejected the claim that this caused the misallocation or prevented correction, finding Ms B bore responsibility for initiating the process so close to the deadline and for not verifying details promptly. A £250 distress and inconvenience payment was ordered.
The Ombudsman's reasoning
The ombudsman found that although AJ Bell made an error in temporarily displaying incorrect tax year information, this error did not cause the contribution to be misapplied to the wrong tax year. The contribution was made after the 5 April 2025 deadline had passed (at 12:10am on 6 April 2025), so it was inevitably allocated to 2025/26 regardless of the website notification. Ms B's failure to log into the account after receiving the welcome email, despite the importance she attached to the tax year allocation and her stated intention not to invest the funds, meant she could have discovered and corrected the error within the cooling-off period. The ombudsman rejected the genuine error claim as the contribution itself was intentional; the error related only to the tax year timing, not the payment itself. Ms B bore responsibility for initiating the process so close to the deadline and for not verifying the contribution details promptly.
How this compares
| Group | Decisions | Uphold rate |
|---|---|---|
| AJ Bell Management Limited, all decisions | 80 | 30% |
Source
Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website