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James Hay Partnership: Financial Advisers reviews

Name: Financial Advisers
Rating: 1.58 (19 reviews)

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1.59

Based on 19 reviews, last reviewed 24th May 2024

No new 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

No new 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

11%

3 star

2 star

84%

Latest highest rating:

5

Easy access to up to date information Easy access to up to date information Reviewed on: 24th May 2024

Latest lowest rating:

1

Maybe 20 mistakes of negligence, . I didn't think that its possible that such terrible company exists in developed country. Total nightmare. Imagine there is cash sitting with Investmen... Read more Reviewed on: 28th February 2024

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James Hay Partnership Financial Advisers reviews (19)

Review of the James Hay Partnership, Financial Advisers:

Don't trust James Hay with your SIPP!

I would strongly recommend anyone choosing a SIPP provider looks through the reviews here, because I can see many others have had all the same sorts of problems we have had with James Hay – a lazy and incompetent company that seem to take full advantage of the difficulties any customers will have in moving to another provider. Even the Chief Executive, Richard Rowney cannot be bothered to get his staff to respond to complaints. We chose a SIPP to purchase commercial property for our pension income with a different company that were good, then unfortunately for us, James Hay purchased this company. We kept a large sum of money in cash to purchase an industrial unit, but James Hay made us jump through so many hoops before they would even instruct a solicitor (including insisting on surveys and a valuation) that the vendor lost confidence and sold to someone else. Even when James Hay finally had instructed the solicitor - the instruction was to pay three times the sum agreed to purchase the building! The result is we lost £6,000 in costs and James Hay did not bother to even reply to our complaint in the statutory 8 weeks. Reviewed on: 9th February 2022

Consistently slow and incompetent service costing £1,990.80 per annum

I bought my first commercial investment property in 2002 using a SIPP. I used Union pension Trustees as my SIPP provider. They were taken over subsequently by James Hay Partnership. Thankfully I have no other properties with them. Since then, fees have risen and service is poor. To give some recent examples: I used their "secure messaging system" to instruct them on 12th August 2020 to pay my buildings insurance. I got a call today 28th September, nearly seven weeks later from my brokers advising that their bill had not been paid. I also used the same system on 13th August to send them forms instructing them to invest a significant sum in a two year bond. This still has not been completed. These are just the most recent issues. Their service is consistently poor. They send paper invoices for my SIPP fees to my tenants instead of to me, they seldom respond to messages in their so called "secure messaging system" which it would appear is so secure that even James Hay themselves can't use it. To be even vaguely confident of anything at all happening you have to call them. I am actually typing this review after being on hold now for over an hour. Once you get through the staff are professional. It is a shame that their management and systems are so appalling that the company as a whole is one that everybody should avoid like the plague. The "online portal" is not useful. I would love to use it to invest the cash in my SIPP but I am advised that because I am a former Union Pensions Trustees investor, I do not have access to these features. The solution is to set up a SIPP with a separate organisation (I'm using Interactive Investor) and then move money out of James Hay into it so that you can invest using a properly set up system. I would change provider, but moving a property from one SIPP to another is very expensive, so to all practical intents and purposes I am stuck with James Hay. I think that my only option is gradually to build a portfolio of evidence and then approach the regulator or TV's Watchdog. Back to the hold music - now one hour and nine minutes after starting and they have terminated the call without answering. Steer well clear of this dysfunctional body of time-wasters. Reviewed on: 28th September 2020

A never ending nightmare

My wife and I have had a SIPP since 2003 and the administrators we stared out with were taken over by James Hay in or around 2010. Since then the service has got steadily worse and the charges have soared. Dealing with them has become like a nightmare that never ends. It was bad enough before COVID-19 , now it is becoming intolerable. My recommendation to anyone considering using James Hay would be to avoid them like the plague. Reviewed on: 28th July 2020

Pitifully incompetent

Advice is bad and changes, they will lose your money. Management non-existent Reviewed on: 20th April 2020

Utterly useless as usual - I need a one word answer from one of their staff but they appear to have switched everything off....

Myself and my partner have been stuck with this useless waste of space firm since our SIPPS were transferred over to the a few years ago. The only reason I don't change SIPP providers is the extortionate costs of doing so. They don't communicate with each other, don't have direct email addresses - only a generic one which they don't answer - and in this time of coronavirus chaos , they have decided to switch their phone system off, without having mobile numbers you can actually speak to somebody about an urgent matter. They appear to have a horrifically high staff turnover rate - not surprising really. Because of their incompetence I have managed to claim compensation for their actions several times - they seem deathly afraid of the regulator. If you are looking for a SIPP provider - avoid this firm unless you want to increase your stress levels and get ripped off for their "support" in the process Reviewed on: 27th March 2020

Consistent admin failure - can't/won't locate a large £ amount

Awful service from this provider, this for nearly £1000 per annum SIPP admin fee for a series of admin fails. Stay away. Secure message portal is pointless - no response unless one calls. The customer service team is (mostly) professional and responsive, but the process breaks down the moment one puts down the phone. Log of issues below: 1. Needed to chase last 2 annual plan reviews, which must be provided as part of the contract; 2. Initial lump sum distribution mishandled by the team all along the process - 14.5 business days and still not resolved. A large sum of my money is missing, JH refuses to chase with the bank "because it's procedure to wait a couple of days": a. My application for distribution was error-free; b. Simple machine generated reports were not done in spite of recorded promises to do so and had to be chased; c. Instructions to the custodian to dispense funds was not done and had to be chased; d. Instructions were sent - by Royal Mail 2nd class not tracked - with illegible signatures, one of which was NOT on the signatory list furnished to the custodian; e. CHAPS transfer from the custodian to James Hay is "missing" for a full day. Sent them a copy of the CHAPS message. JH allegedly forwarder to the bank, but refusing to follow up same day "because we leave the bank alone for a couple of days per our normal procedure". Informing the Consumer Protection bodies and the regulator of this. Reviewed on: 13th November 2019

Regrettably 30 years on and no improvement!

I have had a SIPP with JHP for over 30 years and would change to another provider if it were not for the cost of switching properties and all the legal works involved. Allied to their invoicing and property management arm CBRE, they are quite simply a nightmare! They make regular invoicing mistakes, they really don’t care, on average they take at least two weeks to respond to secure messages! They give out wrong information and as far as I am concerned they fail in their duty of care to Clients. Where do I stop? I have been asked by smart money to update them on the current situation. To put you fully in the picture, I am now on complaint number two which is ongoing, basically it covers what I consider to be simple mistakes made on a regular basis, like wrong invoices being sent to tenants, not updating increased rental levels and invoices and never ever returning emailed correspondence. It is almost as if they are deliberately trying to make life as difficult as possible for me and my wife, who have had SIPPS with them for almost 30 years! Their property management arm (CBRE) are just a complete disaster., they never return emails and make regular mistakes, but charge us £150.00 per hr plus VAT for the privilidge! If anyone would like to discuss this with me or indeed enter into correspondence to set up a self help group I can be contacted on [email protected] Reviewed on: 14th October 2019

Absolutely Diabolical

Where do I start! We have a SSAS with them. After chasing them 3 times, I eventually got a response today to an email I sent 18 WEEKS AGO!! They don't respond to emails unless you phone them, they lose things, you have to send copies of documents you've already sent time and time again as Quote 'it would take me at least 4 hours to find it on our system' The staff are grumpy and either they can't do their jobs or they are seriously understaffed. In 34 years of working I have never come across such an inadequate unprofessional company. They're diabolical. I would never do anyone an injustice by recommending this inept company to them. As soon as I have everything tied up I'm taking the pension out of there. They seriously damage your health!! Reviewed on: 20th September 2019

Disastrous administration

After only a few months I have left James Hay due to awful experience with their admin team. - Constantly sent standard letters to me that ignored the instructions I had given - Multiplied by 10, YES TEN times, my first pension payment - Took weeks to resolve the situation - Said all the right things but didn't follow through with communication to help me understand how they would resolve my complaint - When I asked to transfer to another company they delayed by weeks then sent the forms for cancellation to the wrong team, so my transfer out was horribly delayed A disaster to deal with as every person you speak to says that the previous persons advice was wrong ! I only give 1 star to acknowledge that they did compensate me for the initial wrong payment, otherwise it would have been zero stars Reviewed on: 11th June 2019