A.J. Wealth Management Limited · DRN-5818146

The complaint Mrs J has complained about advice A.J. Wealth Management Limited (AJW) gave her relating to making contributions to her pension. Mrs J says that as a result of following the poor advice, she has been left with a significant unexpected tax bill. What happened The investigator who considered this matter set out the background to the complaint in her assessment of the case. I’m broadly setting out the same background below, with some amendments for the purposes of this decision. Mrs J was referred to AJW by her accountant, to provide her with pension planning advice. Specifically, Mrs J wanted AJW to advise her on the best way she could make employer contributions to her pension to reduce her firm’s corporation tax liability. AJW considered Mrs J’ circumstances and issued its suitability report to her on 30 July 2021. AJW recommended that Mrs J consolidate her existing pension arrangements with Aviva and Hargreaves Lansdown into an Aviva self-invested personal pension (SIPP). Within the report, AJW noted that Mrs J’ was entitled to make pension contributions tax free of up to £40,000 per year. Mrs J accepted the advice and the transfer went ahead. Later in January 2024, Mrs J asked her adviser to provide a recommendation on potentially contributing to her SIPP. AJW advised that Mrs J had around £173,000 of unused contribution allowance available and so she could make the employer contribution of £37,000 as intended. In March 2024, Mrs J again asked for advice to contribute to her SIPP. This time she intended to deposit £136,000. AJW recommended the contribution and it went ahead. In June 2024, Mrs J again asked AJW if she could contribute a further amount of £54,000 to her SIPP. Mrs J had been assigned a new adviser, and during their review of her account, they noted that a warning was applied to Mrs J’ pension which hadn’t been investigated sufficiently when the initial advice was provided in 2021. The warning noted that there were “post pension terms” associated with Mrs J’ original Hargreaves Lansdown pension, and as she had taken a taxable payment from it in 2016, the pension was subject to the Money Purchase Annual Allowance (MPAA). The annual allowance for Mrs J was £10,000 per annum. AJW contacted Aviva on the 24 June 2024 to enquire as to whether it could return all of the contributions Mrs J had made as a matter of urgency. The adviser asked Mrs J for consent to action this to prevent future tax charges. On 26 June 2024, Mrs J’s husband contacted AJW to confirm that he wanted the existing contributions left in Mrs J’ Aviva SIPP, and also that he wanted the third contribution of £54,000 to go ahead.

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On the same day, Aviva emailed AJW to say the following: “A contribution that exceeds the annual allowance could be considered unwise, but it is perfectly permissible by all rules of our pension and by HMRC. It is also not a valid reason to allow a refund according to HMRC, meaning any refund for the sole purpose of correcting an annual allowance charge would be subject to unauthorised payment charges, and would also be considered by HMRC to still exceed the annual allowance, meaning it would be penalised twice. In order for us to consider a refund, the employer needs to provide evidence to us that the contribution was made in genuine error, as in they were aware of the annual allowance charge issues, elected not to contribute in excess of that limit, but due to some administrative or clerical error a contribution was made anyway. If they can provide evidence, such as internal communications or pension contribution agreements and also if they can confirm to us when they were first made aware of the issue and when this was reported to us. In the absence of acceptable evidence to allow a genuine error refund, we must consider the contribution to be valid and we would not be able to refund.” On 26 July 2024, Aviva notified AJW that it was no longer the servicing agent for Mrs J’s pension. In November 2024, Mrs J made a complaint to AJW. She explained that she had engaged it to provide advice on her pension contributions, she had followed its advice and trusted it was in her best interests. However, she’d received a bill from HMRC for the tax year 2023/2024, saying that her pension contributions exceeded her allowance by £168,000, which left her with a tax bill of £71,160.50. Mrs J estimated that she would also receive a tax bill for year 2024/2025 in the region of £18,600. She wanted AJW to cover these costs to resolve her complaint. AJW didn’t respond to Mrs J’s complaint. Unfortunately, following an internal investigation it appears Mrs J’s previous adviser had mis-handled the complaint and it therefore wasn’t answered in line with FCA requirements. As Mrs J didn’t receive a response, she asked this service to investigate her complaint. AJW has since apologised for not issuing a full response to the complaint and supplied this service with its file. Having considered the matter, our investigator thought that the complaint should be upheld in part, saying the following in summary: • AJW had identified that its advice given to Mrs J in 2021 was based on incorrect information. It advised Mrs J of the wrong contribution level she could make to her pension because it hadn’t properly investigated whether there were any limitations on her pension. It then continued to reiterate the incorrect information to Mrs J in its advice in both January and March 2024. Only in June 2024 when the matter was thoroughly looked into did AJW become aware of the error. • Once the error was identified, AJW did all it could to prevent Mrs J being charged by HMRC. It quickly clarified with Aviva that the contributions could be returned and told Mrs J of the problem. Had Mrs J consented to returning the contributions when she was initially informed on 24 June 2024, they would have been returned to her

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employer, thus reducing her contributions to ensure that her allowance wasn’t exceeded. However, the tax bill was issued because Mr J confirmed that he didn’t want the contributions returned. • Whilst AJW’s mis-advice resulted in the error being made, this service would expect consumers to also mitigate their losses, and AJW did provide Mrs J with a solution to correct the error which she declined to take. It wouldn’t therefore be fair to ask AJW to cover Mrs J’s tax bill. Had Mrs J accepted AJW’s proposed resolution on 24 June 2024, she wouldn’t have received the tax bill. • However, Mrs J engaged AJW to provide her with a service that she paid for. And Mrs J was entitled to receive advice that was accurate and in her best interests. This didn’t happen. The advice wasn’t accurate and therefore placed Mrs J into a position she unfortunately wasn’t entitled to be in under the terms of her existing pension arrangement. • To resolve this complaint fairly, AJW should repay Mrs J all of the advice fees that she had paid it, from 2021 when she initially engaged its services, to July 2024 when the agreement was ended. In response, Mrs J’s representative requested evidence of the communication between AJW and both Mr and Mrs J relating to its proposal to have the contributions returned and that Mr J informed it that both the existing contributions should remain invested and the further contribution of £54,000 should be made. It also requested the communication between AJW and Aviva, along with evidence relating to any communication with Mr and Mrs J’s accountant, as reversing contributions wasn’t as straightforward as had been suggested. The investigator put the information request to AJW, which replied as follows: • The contributions into Mrs J’s pension from Mr and Mrs J’s company were as follows: January 2024 £37,000 March 2024 £136,200 June 2024 £54,000 • Mr and Mrs J were the only directors and shareholders of the company, with the shares held equally between them. As a director of the company, Mrs J would have been well aware of the transactions being entered into. • It was always accepted that Mr J was the main contact with AJW on behalf of the company, and his and his wife’s investments and pensions. A paraplanner at AJW miscalculated the maximum amount that Mrs J could contribute into her pension, and this was then passed to the adviser. • Mrs J had always been entirely happy and always had left all dealings with the company and her affairs up to Mr J. Mrs J signed a letter to this effect at her first meeting with AJW. • The MPAA issue was identified by both AJW’s office manager and the adviser as part of a file check. As soon as the miscalculation was identified, they both had conversations with Aviva, which established that the June 2024 contribution hadn’t been processed and would be returned to source, and that the earlier two

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contributions could be refunded if it could be shown that they were paid as part of a genuine error by a third party which, of course they were. • The process to recover the contributions and have them returned to source, i.e. to the company, had commenced and would have been completed. • It had requested the telephone recordings from Aviva but had been advised that it would need the authority of Mr and Mrs J or they could be requested by this service directly. • The adviser also had a conversation with the Aviva Technical Department in June 2024 which confirmed that contributions could be refunded if it could be shown that they were paid as part of a genuine error by a third party, and that there was no intention of breaching the MPAA, and that if the contributions were refunded, corporation tax relief wouldn’t be available, but no MPAA charge would be levied on Mrs J. • The adviser also contacted the Aviva Technical Department on 21 July 2025 when it again confirmed the above and also the fact that the company would receive corporation tax relief if the premiums weren’t returned. • As soon as the MPAA breach was recognised by AJW, the company acted very quickly in contacting Aviva to request a return of premiums. It was confident that the return of premiums would have ensured that Mrs J would not be subject to a MPAA charge. • The adviser did consult with Mrs J’s accountant on 24 June 2024 to advise that the contributions would need to be refunded to the company, otherwise Mrs J would be subject to the MPAA charge. The adviser said that she’d been in contact with Aviva and that this could be done. The accountant said that he would discuss the matter with Mr J and revert to her. But the adviser was never contacted by the accountant again on the matter. • Mr J contacted AJW on 26 June 2024 to say that he’d had a meeting with the accountant to discuss the situation regarding the company pension contributions and his wife’s pension. Mr J said that he’d made the decision to leave the contributions in place and breach the MPAA following his meeting with his accountant. • AJW was extremely surprised at Mr and Mrs J’s decision not to follow its advice to have the premiums refunded. It was understood that, as the contributions had been left in place, the company would have benefited from the corporation tax relief, regardless of any breach in the MPAA. At 25%, this would have amounted to a £56,800 reduction in the company’s corporation tax liability for the year ending 30 June 2024. The company would appear to be a very profitable and cash rich company and it seemed as though Mr J’s prime objective was to reduce corporation tax liabilities. • AJW’s telephony system only kept telephone recordings for three months, and the centralised location where they might have been stored didn’t have copies of them. It did however have a call log with dates and times of the conversations held. • Mr and Mrs J had knowledge of the MPAA and restriction applying to Mrs J’s

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contributions. Prior to Mrs J becoming a client, she had taken a one-off taxable payment in April 2016 from her pension with Hargreaves Lansdown that had made her subject to the MPAA. • The suitability report issued to Mrs J from AJW in July 2021 reminded her of this and that she would be limited to contributions of £10,000 each year. • When a trigger event occurred, the pension provider would issue a flexible access statement. This would confirm the date on which the MPAA had been triggered. By law, this needed to be passed on to other pension providers within 31 days. • Aviva would also have written to Mrs J following the pension payments in January 2024, March 2024 and June 2024 informing her that she would have been in breach of the MPAA. • It considered that it did everything it could to reverse the situation, and provided Mrs J with a solution that would have remedied the situation. As Mrs J opted to go against the advice that was given, and move the pension away from its management, it was unable to act any further to rectify the situation. Mrs J chose to not follow its advice and opted to receive corporation tax relief and incur the MPAA charge. • It further considered that it had acted in Mrs J’s best interests following the discovery of the situation, contacting both the accountant and Mrs J with a remedy which she chose to dismiss without any consultation. • It didn’t believe that it was liable to pay compensation in respect of the tax liabilities that Mrs J had incurred. Had she followed its advice and had the funds been returned to the company bank account, there would be no tax liability due. This was put to Mrs J’s representative, which then responded as follows: • It was difficult to comment upon aspects such as the phone conversations with Aviva, as the recordings hadn’t been made available. There had also been confusing aspects of the investigation and findings. There was reference to a change in adviser being used as a reason for the problem occurring and then this was retracted. There was mention of contributions being advised in 2021, when no contributions were advised until 2023. • There had also been no written evidence to support any of the responses made by AJW – except for a letter signed by Mrs J allowing AJW to speak with Mr J. • It was recorded that AJW called the client’s accountant on 24 June 2024 to discuss refunding the contributions made previously. The accountant had discussed this call with Mrs J’s representative and his recollections of that call were that the only contributions discussed were the new planned employer contribution of £54,000 that was intended to be made prior to the 30 June 2024 company year end. • A brief timeline of the advice was as follows: July 2021 – Pension advice commenced. Pension funds were advised to be transferred into the Aviva Pension from another provider and contributions were set at £100pm.

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July 2023 – Regular contributions were increased to £500pm, which indicated that advice was given to Mrs J by AJW around this time. Advice at this time should have considered the MPAA. The relevance here was that in the tax year 2022/23 the MPAA was set at £4,000. A contribution of £500pm would have exceeded that MPAA limit. However, by July 2023 the MPAA had been increased to £10,000 pa, meaning that advice to increase the regular monthly contribution around July 2023 indicated that the adviser was likely to have been aware of the MPAA impact at the time this advice was given. i.e. this advice to increase the contribution was only made once the MPAA had increased sufficiently to permit it. January 2024 – Advice was given on the lump sum contribution and £37,000 was contributed. This contribution alone would mean the MPAA was breached during the 2024/25 tax year. March 2024 – Further advice was given and an additional £137,200 lump sum employer contribution was made. By this point, AJW had provided advice on three separate occasions and at all of these points the MPAA should have been considered. Jun 2024 – Further advice was given regarding an additional £54,000 pension contribution. At this stage, the £54,000 was being calculated as being the maximum allowed in the 2024/25 tax year without tax penalties being incurred. Initial discussions clearly took place about the annual allowance being £60,000 and with the £500pm contributions utilising £6,000 of the allowance, an amount of £54,000 would mean the full 2024/25 allowance would be used. • It was only at this point that AJW finally considered the MPAA. The company year end was only five working days away at the point when AJW called Mr J and their accountant about the planned contribution. • At this point, a prudent financial adviser would need to consider their obligations under the Consumer Duty. These duties included: Products and Services – have their services provided value? Client Understanding – do the clients fully understand what is happening? Do they understand what they are being advised to do? Do they understand the options open to them, including positive and negative impacts to the advised action? Consumer Support – are the firm providing the right support to their client to enable them to make an informed decision and achieve the right outcomes? • It appeared that there were telephone conversations on and around 24 Jun 2024, although it had no sight of clear call notes from AJW or Aviva recording the details of those calls. The investigator’s assessment reported AJW as informing them that those conversations were with: - Aviva – who AJW had said agreed that contributions could all be refunded. - Mr J (call one) – who was allegedly told that all the contributions could be refunded. - The accountant – to discuss the contributions, but it wasn’t clear what was said. - Mr J (call two) – in which AJW reported that Mr J said to leave all contributions in the pension and proceed with the new contribution too.

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• Its own discussions with Mrs J, the accountant and Aviva reported the conversations as follows: - Mr J (call one) - Mr J recalled that the adviser called him and began the conversation by saying something along the lines of “there is a problem with the payments made into your wife’s pension fund”. Mr J recalled that it became quite a heated discussion during which he confirmed this “messes up their pension plans” and the adviser apologised and explained that the paraplanner had made a mistake. Mr J further recalled that there was little detail included in the call and although difficult for him to recall completely, he wasn’t given any advice on what actions should be taken. His main concern after the call was a decision was needed on the new contribution because the company year-end was fast approaching. The accountant – Mr J called his accountant to ask for advice as to how to proceed. The accountant spoke with AJW and he has recorded that when he spoke with the adviser, the discussion focussed on the planned £54,000 contribution and the adviser didn’t mention the prior contributions. After this call, the accountant was concerned about the advice his client was receiving and approached the representative on 25 Jun 2024 to discuss whether it could give him some guidance. The accountant later sent an email to explain the conversation he had with the adviser. That email included the following: “Her existing IFA has said that she can still put £60,000 per annum from the company to the pension scheme but the company would only be able to claim corporation tax relief on the first £10,000 under the Money Purchase Annual Allowance.” There was no explanation from AJW to the accountant about the additional tax penalty implications on Mrs J personally of that level of contribution being made. With this information being what the accountant and the client had been told by AJW they made the decision to go ahead with the contribution because the company year-end was so close, knowing that they could consider the full position when they were finalising the year end accounts. Mr J (call two) – Mr J spoke with AJW and explained his decision to go ahead with the planned contribution given his understanding that the tax relief would be limited. He was unaware of the full implications of the contribution on Mrs J personally and also unaware of the tax implications of the prior contributions. • The investigator had said that Mrs (and Mr) J were given a fair opportunity to correct the problem before the tax penalties would have been applied and that for this reason she wasn’t upholding the complaint. • But the Consumer Duty principles would suggest that, as a minimum, AJW should have made sure Mrs J understood exactly what had happened, what the likely tax penalties would be, and provided some clarity on the options available and ensure that they were understood by Mrs J. • Refunding pension contributions a significant amount of time after they had been

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made wasn’t a regular occurrence. This would require considerable consultation and include many different issues, including whether they would be allowed, how long it would take and whether HMRC would accept that course of action. • The investigator’s findings suggested that she accepted that AJW did all it could to prevent Mrs J being charged by HMRC, but Mrs J couldn’t answer any of the above questions as she wasn’t fully informed. • Mrs J received no written correspondence from AJW at any stage explaining the issue. This was all conducted during phone conversations in the space of a few days. Mrs J wasn’t aware of the size of the tax penalties that would apply to the contributions or when and how they could be paid. • Mrs J didn’t have the process explained about how she would need to go about correcting this issue, and was unaware of any of the potential impacts beyond the statement that AJW made to the accountant. • The adviser had said that she could still put £60,000 per annum from the company into the pension scheme but the company would only be able to claim corporation tax relief on the first £10,000 under the MPAA. • AJW continued to administer the new contribution and it hadn’t yet seen a copy of the suitability report regarding this. AJW appeared to do so under the impression that the tax penalty would be that the company would not be able to claim the full amount of the contribution for tax relief and it would be restricted to £10,000. AJW appeared to be unaware of the personal tax penalty that would apply to Mrs J and didn’t disclose that to Mrs J. • AJW ignored the regular contribution that was still being paid and this was set to continue and effectively continue to make the tax penalty position worse. It didn’t advise that this contribution should cease. • It was understood that the client needed to do all they can to mitigate the impact of incorrect advice. However, it seemed clear that even in its attempts to correct things, AJW had fallen a long way short of its Consumer Duty obligations on Client Support and Consumer Understanding. • Mrs J was completely uninformed about the implications of what AJW was now saying was the solution to the problem. The clients understood the phone calls referred to were based almost entirely on considerations for the new contribution and not focused on correcting the problem with the prior contributions. • There were only AJW’s “recollections” of a phone call with Aviva in which the latter agreed that refunding the contributions was even possible. Aviva gave the representative no indication that refunding the contributions would have been possible or allowed. It also had no indication that HMRC would have accepted this course of action and therefore remove the tax penalties. As agreement couldn’t be reached on the matter, the investigator confirmed to both parties that it would be referred to an ombudsman for review. AJW enquired as to reasons for Mrs J’s rejection of her assessment, which the investigator duly provided. In response, a representative for AJW confirmed that it agreed with the investigator’s assessment and that, whilst it maintained its position on the matter, it recognised that

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mistakes had been made in noticing the situation sooner, and would make an additional offer of £300 if this would prevent the matter from needing to be decided by way of a final decision. Mrs J’s representative rejected that offer. As such, the complaint has been referred to me for review. At my request, the investigator asked Aviva for the recordings of the calls with AJW, and for the call notes from AJW. These were forwarded to Mrs J’s representative for further comment. It did so as follows: • Although AJW spoke with Mr J, who told them to go ahead with the contributions even if there are tax penalties, there was no evidence that Mr J was informed of the quantum of any tax penalties that would apply, either for the £54,000 contribution, or the original two contributions made in January and March 2024. It was hard to see how Mr J would be in a fully informed position to make the decision. • It had been established that Aviva hadn’t agreed to refunds of the contributions, and therefore the mitigation that had been used as the main reason to not find in favour of Mrs J now not certain. • It looked like the call (two) with Mr J focussed on the £54,000 contribution made in June 2024 only. • The meeting held with the accountant and Mr J was purely from the accountancy perspective and didn’t include Mrs J. In fact, it was that meeting that prompted the accountant to refer to the representative for assistance because he had no knowledge or history of this type of event and didn’t know the personal tax positions because of the incorrect contributions. • On 25 June 2024 there appeared to remain the possible cancellation of the most recent £54,000 contribution, which may have been within a cancellation rights period at that point. However, the apparent lack of controls in place at AJW, around advice being given by its adviser appeared to be at the heart of this. This resulted in a ‘snap decision’ made by Mr J and his accountant that refunding the £54,000 contribution, even at the last minute, was too problematic for the company year-end accounting. • However, they were not fully aware of the amount of the tax penalties that would become due and that could be applied at that point in time when making that decision. Also, there seemed very little, if any, commentary on the previous, much larger pension contributions made in error. Concentrating on the £54,000 payment was only 1/3rd of the problem here. And AJW calling Aviva to cancel any possibility of contribution refunds on 26 Jun 2024 appears to lead to the closing of AJW’s files on this matter with no indication of an effort being made to help the client understand and deal with the potential future consequences of the tax penalties. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. With regard firstly to the comments made by AJW about Mrs J’s likely awareness of her being subject to the MPAA after the taxable withdrawal in 2016, I acknowledge the points

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being made, but Mrs J was nevertheless paying for advice from AJW, and was therefore entitled to receive professional and accurate advice. If Mrs J was overseeing her own pension affairs, then there would have seemed to be little point in her seeking the services of AJW. Issues such as the MPAA aren’t straightforward. And so I don’t think AJW can abrogate responsibility for what has happened here on the basis of what it considers ought to have been Mrs J’s awareness of the constraints of the MPAA. As such, and from the perspective of AJW’s regulatory requirements, I agree that there have been customer service and advice failings here - and I don’t think that AJW disputes this. But I’ve then thought more generally about what has happened here, and to what extent, following the awareness of what had happened, Mrs (and/or Mr on her behalf) J made an informed decision to nevertheless retain the contributions in the pension plan. Mrs J’s accountant sent an email on 26 June 2024, in which it set out that AJW had confirmed that the company could pay £60,000 into Mrs J’s pension plan, but that the company would only be able to claim corporation tax relief on the first £10,000 under the MPAA. I enquired of the representative as to why the accountant would have accepted this, to which the representative has said that this was information provided by AJW. But this doesn’t in my view explain why an accountant would accept what was clearly either a miscommunication or a misinterpretation of the reality of the position. Nor does it seem likely to me that AJW would have commented on corporation tax matters, when its primary consideration was the realisation that the MPAA applied and that this would primarily affect the pension side of Mrs J’s affairs. I’ve noted the further comments of Mrs J’s accountant, in that they only recall discussing the return of the £54,000 contribution, but even if there is no recollection of a discussion around the January and March 2024 contributions, I think on balance that it’s more likely than not that these were discussed with Mr and/or Mrs J. Such conversations are recorded in AJW’s call notes. But even if the credibility of the notes was in doubt, it would seem distinctly unlikely to me that AJW would go to the trouble of trying to establish with Aviva whether all of the contributions could be returned if it didn’t itself appreciate the consequences for Mrs J. And I think it’s just as unlikely that it would have done so without this information being conveyed to Mr and/or Mrs J, and indeed consent for what it was proposing being sought from them. I don’t think it’s likely that such consent would have been sought without AJW explaining the full implications of the position if the contributions were retained within the plan. And this would reasonably include the amount of tax penalties which would apply if the contributions weren’t returned. There would seem to be no plausible reason as to why AJW wouldn’t have disclosed the ramifications, given the potential consequences for it. And in the unlikely event that AJW hadn’t disclosed the amount of tax penalties which would be faced, it might reasonably be expected that Mr/Mrs J would themselves have enquired of this before deciding whether to retain them in the pension plan. There may have been nothing issued in writing, but I don’t think this would necessarily be unexpected when there was a degree of urgency in the situation. And so I’m satisfied that Mr and/or Mrs J were aware, or ought reasonably to have been aware, of AJW’s proposal, and why it was proposing that the contributions be returned. Mrs J’s representative has said that it was in any case unlikely that the contributions could have been returned to the company. As noted above, it said that Aviva had given it no indication that the contributions could be returned, but when I requested that this exchange be provided, it said that it in fact had had no confirmation from Aviva either way. Nevertheless, as also set out above, Aviva confirmed to AJW in writing at the time that, in order for it to consider a refund, the employer would need to provide evidence to it that the

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contribution was made in genuine error, e.g. it was aware of the annual allowance charge issues, elected not to contribute in excess of that limit, but due to some administrative or clerical error a contribution was made anyway. I’ve noted AJW’s belief that the oversight here would constitute the kind of error which HMRC would consider acceptable to warrant a return of the contribution, but I think this would in reality be more nuanced. I in fact think it’s quite debateable as to whether HMRC would deem the circumstances here to count as the type of administrative or clerical error which would warrant a return of the contributions to avoid the tax charge. But the relevant consideration here is that this was never tested. Mrs (or rather Mr) J made the decision to retain the contributions in the pension plan, in the likely knowledge of the tax consequences. Irrespective of whether Aviva/HMRC would ultimately consider a return of the contributions to be allowable, AJW had indicated to them that this should be possible. They didn’t therefore make the decision to not have the contributions returned on the basis of it being unlikely that that any such request would be successful – as far as I can tell, there was no conversation between Mr and Mrs J and AJW in which they expressed doubt that the return would be allowable. The decision to retain the contributions was seemingly made on the basis of a consideration following discussions with their accountant, and what I can only assume was therefore a view taken on the benefits of the corporation tax advantage versus the pension tax bill. As such, I don’t think it would be fair or reasonable to then require AJW to meet the tax bill generated by the retention of the contributions in the pension plan. Putting things right As I’ve noted above, there were certainly failing here, and Mrs J didn’t receive the service to which she was entitled. As such, as with the investigator, my view is that A.J. Wealth Management Limited should repay to Mrs J all the advice fees it has received from her. My final decision My final decision is that I partially uphold the complaint and direct A.J. Wealth Management Limited to undertake the above. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs J to accept or reject my decision before 3 April 2026. Philip Miller Ombudsman

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