People waiting to transfer money trapped in Sipp operator Hartley Pensions could be charged £37mn to withdraw their savings.
UHY Hacker Young, the administrator, is expected to apply to the courts for permission to charge Sipp account holders the “exit and administration charge”.
Around 100 people joined an online meeting on Monday night (December 4) chaired by Gareth Fatchett of FS Solicitors, the firm acting for the Representative Respondents.
He told concerned investors: “The reason they're going to make a court application is because they need to have a court blessing that they can reach into the trustee companies, which hold your assets, to take the payment.
“That is part of a winding down plan to get rid of the assets and take your accounts out of Hartley, and in order to make sure things move on.”
The meeting heard from concerned Sipp investors, with some saying they want to see progress so they can move on with their lives.
It is understood more than 16,000 people are affected by the Hartley Scandal, with Fatchett saying many are not in the loop with what’s happening.
In the meeting, one of the investors asked whether there was more the administrator could do to allow people to transfer their money from Hartley.
He said: “It does feel that we are being slightly held to ransom here by the administrator.
“There is no reason they couldn’t formulate a worst case scenario, in terms of individual costs, then have that as a reserve amount and transfer the balance out to a good, clean administrator.
“Surely there is a point that should be made to Hacker that they are holding us back when they could have a formula for letting us get out with most of it and get on with our lives.”
Fatchett added: “UHY have got to think of a way out and they've got to think of a way out that allows them to will transfer and kill it and wind it down.
“The only practical question is at what cost?”
‘The FSCS are trolling us’
On Friday (December 1) the Financial Services Compensation Scheme confirmed any exit and administration charges would not be eligible for redress by the body.
It said: “Although the joint administrators have given FSCS some examples of alleged administrative failings by Hartley in relation to some of its customers, it is not clear to us that a court would find that these failings would be a breach of a regulatory rule, contractual term or duty of care owed to the customer or that they directly caused a loss to the customer.
“FSCS also does not consider that the damages a court would award in relation to Hartley’s alleged failings would include the Exit and Administration Charge, because there isn’t a close enough link between the actions of the firm and the proposed charge.
