FOS throws out IFA's 'insistent client' claim on Harlequin investment

Carmen Reichman
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The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has denied an IFA's claim a client who invested her pension into Harlequin property "would have found an alternative adviser if they had not acted".

The FOS had ruled Kingswood Financial Advisers was liable for facilitating a pension transfer into a self invested personal pension (SIPP), which then got invested in Harlequin property. The unregulated investment scheme worked by taking deposits from mainly UK pension investors to build off-plan properties in the Caribbean, which could then be sold at a profit on completion or used to generate a rental income from holidaymakers. But out of a scheduled 6,000 properties, it is understood about 300 have been built, with investors currently unable to get their money back. Kingswood di...

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