Murphy Wealth Limited · DRN-6197588

The complaint Mr M complains that Murphy Wealth Limited (MWL) failed to provide him with the correct ongoing advice service that he was paying for. He therefore thinks that it should refund him the fees that they were paid. What happened Mr M received a recommendation from MWL to transfer his defined benefit pension scheme to a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) in late 2020. Mr M agreed for MWL to provide him with ongoing financial advice, and negotiated a flat fee of £5,000 a year for annual planning advice, plus 0.2% of the fund value as the Investment advisory fee. In September 2024 Mr M complained to MWL about the quality of the ongoing service that he was receiving. He considered that the number of meetings had reduced after he refused to agree to an increase in the annual fee. MWL responded to explain that it considered that it had provided a fair service for the fee and didn’t think that it was fair to refund the fees that Mr M had paid. Mr M referred this complaint to our service where an investigator considered the circumstances but was unable to give a view that was agreed by both parties. So the case was referred for an ombudsman’s decision. I considered the evidence and arguments independently and I sent my provisional finding to both parties to explain why I didn’t think that MWL had done anything materially wrong within the parameters of this complaint. In summary: • I explained that my decision in this case would be limited to the specific complaint points that were originally raised in it. • I summarised what I thought MWL’s ongoing service ought broadly to have looked like. Then I set out what I determined that the documentation showed. • I concluded that MWL had, broadly speaking, set out to provide Mr M with the ongoing service that was agreed. • I addressed the issues that Mr M had raised regarding the way that MWL approached his attitude to investment risk, explaining why I didn’t agree with Mr M’s view. • In summary, I wasn’t persuaded that MWL had failed to provide Mr M with a reasonable level of service over the period in question. So wasn’t inclined to uphold this particular complaint.

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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. Having considered everything in this case, my final decision is that I am not upholding Mr M’s complaint. And my reasons remain the same as I set out in my provisional decision. I have considered Mr M’s detailed submission which explained the many ways in which he disagreed with my provisional decision. I thank him for the time he has invested in setting out his argument again. But the arguments that he offers are, in the main, the same or similar to those already made, and that I had considered prior to my provisional decision. Where arguments he has made were not commented on in my provisional decision, or in what follows, it is because I consider them to be specific to some of the other complaints that Mr M has chosen to bring. So not material to the finding that I need to make in this case. I would stress again that this decision is only looking at the specific complaint about MWL’s ongoing advice service. Mr M has made other complaints about specific elements of MWL’s service since it recommended his pension transfer. Some of these have been resolved through Final Decision by an ombudsman and some are still outstanding. Where possible I have avoided referring to those separately decided issues, or those yet to be decided under other complaints. This includes, for instance, the issues that Mr M has referred separately that relate to the accuracy of cashflow analysis (with regards to his remaining tax-free cash), the initial transfer advice, the clarity of MWL’s initial client agreement and explanation of fees, and so on. Further to this, I reiterate again that our service exists to provide an alternative to the courts for resolving disputes between consumers and financial businesses. We aim to do this quickly and with less formality than a court. What that means in this case is that, although Mr M has set out numerous complaint points in detail, I do not have to address every single point in the same detail. Rather, my remit allows me to determine what I think is at the heart of Mr M’s complaint and, taking all of the evidence and arguments from both parties into consideration, to provide a determination on that. My reasoning will be explained by reference to the evidence that has informed that decision rather than every argument or item submitted in the course of our investigation, both before and after my provisional decision. What should MWL’s ongoing service have looked like. Questions about what the agreed fees were have been addressed in other complaints, so I will not visit those issues again here. I will simply explain that, as has previously been determined in the other complaints, the fees that Mr M agreed to were as I set out in the above background. Which were in the Terms of Business (TOB) that Mr M signed online, via ‘Docusign’, on 26 February 2021. The TOB set out the level of service as follows: Ongoing service option: Our ongoing service option incorporates a periodic suitability review of the investments we have recommended, this is to ensure the original recommendation remains suitable. This periodic assessment will be completed at least annually however, the frequency may be increased when taking into account your risk profile and the types of financial products that have been recommended.

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In addition to this MWL provided a Service and Fee Agreement (SFA). MWL intended this document to provide more detail about the service it had recommended. In summary, it explained that it would include, what I consider to be, the following key services: • A bespoke ongoing planning service based on your requirements and agreed with your financial planner. • A detailed cashflow forecast. • Review and implement any changes to the investment, this includes a review of asset allocation, capacity for loss and portfolio valuations. • Access to MWL’s client portal Taking the above two documents into consideration, I think that Mr M should have expected a periodic review of the suitability of his investments at least annually. In addition to this, in its response to Mr M’s complaint, MWL acknowledged that Mr M should have benefited from a more regular schedule of meetings. Although there is no documented agreement about the precise frequency. But I note that it would not be unreasonable for that to be agreed between Mr M and his adviser. So may, reasonably, fluctuate from year to year based on Mr M’s reasonable requirements. Mr M was also entitled to receive updated cashflow forecasts, updated investment balancing and access to the online portfolio. Did MWL provide Mr M with a fair and reasonable ongoing financial planning service? In the course of investigating this complaint our service has received large volumes of material in submissions from both parties. These reflect that there was a considerable amount of contact between MWL and Mr M in the years that Mr M was a client of MWL. I have reviewed all of that but, as our service is intended to provide a means to resolve complaints with a minimum of formality, I will only summarise here what I think are the key features of the overall evidence. I will do this by summarising the timeline of key contact between the parties as follows. February 2021 – First interim planning meeting May 2021 – Interim planning meeting September 2021 – Interim planning meeting. Advised on income drawdown. February 2022 – Annual planning meeting March 2022 – Email correspondence during March to arrange fund switch from ‘MW50’ to ‘MW70’ which Mr M agreed to and was implemented. August 2022 – Interim planning meeting December 2022 – Interim planning meeting March 2023 – Annual planning meeting June 2023 – Mr M complained to MWL about it renegotiating its fees for the ongoing advice. MWL responded to this complaint in this month. August 2023 – Interim planning meeting

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February 2024 – Mr M and MWL were in further correspondence about the fees that were being charged. April 2024 – MWL and Mr M had a phone call regarding an income withdrawal. Notes from the call document that Mr M’s mother was in hospital and that MWL would be in contact with Mr M after his holiday. MWL provided a service regarding the income withdrawal. May 2024 – MWL contact Mr M to try to arrange the annual review meeting with him. He was unavailable. June 2024 – MWL in contact with Mr M about a further income withdrawal. MWL produced updated cashflow model and processed income request for Mr M. Arranged review meeting for 10 July 2024. July 2024 – Mr M in contact with MWL complaining about the suitability of his defined benefit transfer. Review meeting was deferred whilst there were issues in dispute that were being investigated. September 2024 – Mr M in contact with MWL raising this complaint about the ongoing advice service. In this month Mr M was also in contact with MWL regarding further income withdrawal. MWL produces cashflow forecasts for this request. October 2024 – Annual planning meeting (deferred following email exchanges between both parties). In this month Mr M also raised an additional complaint with MWL about the transaction charges that had been incurred within his SIPP. December 2024 – Mr M contacts MWL to request that his fund be moved back to the MW50 model portfolio. Which MWL process. March 2025 – MWL provide an income withdrawal service and interim planning meeting. In late March 2025 Mr M complained about the accuracy of the cashflow projections that he’d been receiving. April 2025 – Mr M contacted MWL asking for an updated ‘Voyant’ report which would provide cashflow modelling. Which MWL responds to providing updated report. Then later a further updated cashflow in response to another request for income. June 2025 – Interim review carried out. July 2025 – MWL provide service in response to requirement for drawdown and implementation of regular income drawdown going forward. On 15 July 2025 MWL contact Mr M to give 6 weeks’ notice to terminate its ongoing advice agreement with him. On 30 July 2025 MWL provides an annual review. August 2025 – MWL contact Mr M on 26 August 2025 to confirm that it is no longer providing an advice service and that fees will stop. I set out the above summary because I think it helps to give an overview of the broad level of contact and service that MWL provided to Mr M over the time that he was its client. But stress that, for simplicity and ease of reading, it is merely a summary. I, of course, understand that MWL had contact with Mr M prior to February 2021 as he had received initial transfer advice. But that is not a consideration of whether the ongoing advice after the transfer was sufficient. I also understand that Mr M does not agree with my above

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summary having raised concerns about the accuracy of MWL’s records. Both before and after my provisional decision. But I have compiled the above summary having seen the relevant correspondence, notes, dated Voyant cashflow reports, as well as the presentations that MWL use for the review meetings. Where MWL have provided records of contact I think that they, more likely than not, are reasonable reflections of events. I am therefore persuaded, on a balance of probability, that the above list is an accurate summary of the key events. I would reassure Mr M here that I have fully considered the allegation that he has made that MWL’s evidence is fraudulent. I am not persuaded that the evidence of that is sufficiently compelling. I say that because the evidence is not without the type of inconsistencies and issues that would reflect the records being made contemporaneously. And include emails that are date stamped. I do however accept that the initial agreements were muddled. However this has been dealt with in other of Mr M’s complaints. I think that the regularity of contact in the above summary demonstrates that MWL had systems in place to ensure that it delivered the review part of its service for the most part. I accept that it could have been more meticulous with its record keeping. But I don’t think it is fair to suggest that it was not, broadly speaking, meeting regularly with Mr M. The purpose of such meetings is to review a customer’s circumstances. And in the area of retirement planning MWL worked closely with Mr M to understand his circumstances, objectives, income needs and the ability of his pension fund to support that. It appears to me, through the regularly updated cash flow analysis, that MWL guided Mr M through the process of accessing his pension through drawdown. It enabled him to use his income with the reassurance that his fund could still provide for his ongoing retirement. Mr M has argued that MWL did not do enough to understand his attitude to investment risk and therefore failed to provide a fair service. But I am not persuaded that is entirely fair criticism. MWL used a questionnaire as a tool to help assess Mr M’s attitude to risk. This is a useful tool, but it would still be reasonable to discuss the result and try to understand the responses. Any recommendation about a suitable investment strategy should be guided by that conversation as well as consideration of other things such as Mr M’s capacity to suffer investment losses, and his objectives. MWL demonstrated that it did this at the outset when it made a recommendation for Mr M to invest in its ‘MW50’ portfolio. MWL agreed with Mr M that he was a balanced risk investor, which was risk group 4 on a 7 point scale. This was informed by Mr M’s risk score of 51 in MWL’s questionnaire. I am satisfied that MWL did consider Mr M’s attitude to investment risk suitably at the outset. Mr M complains that he didn’t complete another questionnaire with MWL until July 2024, by which time his responses gave a score of 35 moving him to MWL’s risk group 3. But, as I explained, the questionnaire is simply a tool to help gauge attitude to risk. It is not mandatory, and it need not necessarily be used annually. What is more important is that MWL understood Mr M’s changing financial circumstances. And, given the frequency of contact and recorded details, I think that it did. I understand that, following the annual planning meeting of February 2022, MWL agreed with Mr M to move to the higher risk portfolio ‘MW70’. Notes from the meeting indicate that this change to the portfolio was recommended in response to inflation rates. It sought to align the investments less to bonds for the short term. Given Mr M’s fund size, and objective of capital growth of his fund to support his income needs, this was not unsuitable. And, given the notes, and the subsequent correspondence following that meeting, I am persuaded that it was explained.

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I am aware that there was a delay in providing the annual review in 2024. So I have considered whether or not MWL made proportionate attempts to engage with Mr M. And I think that it did. It was in contact with Mr M to arrange that meeting. So I do not doubt that MWL was prepared and willing to carry out that review. By that stage however, it looks like relations between Mr M and MWL had already started to deteriorate. He had already made several complaints and MWL were having to respond to those whilst also considering his financial planning needs. I have considered whether the difficulty in arranging the 2024 annual review means that MWL should have stopped providing Mr M with ongoing advice and switched off its fees. But I am not sure that would have been reasonable. That’s because Mr M continued to engage with MWL for assistance / advice for his income drawdown strategy. So I think that Mr M continued to make use of MWL’s financial planning service. The annual review ended up being very late. But after it was held, a more regular pattern of meetings continued, right up until the point that MWL ended its client relationship with Mr M. I understand that Mr M will be disappointed with my finding on this. But I am considering what I think is a fair and reasonable outcome considering everything as a whole. And for the reasons I’ve set out so far, I don’t think that it’s reasonable to suggest that MWL failed to provide ongoing financial planning advice that was broadly in line with what Mr M was paying for. Did MWL provide Mr M with cashflow analysis? The short answer to this question is, yes. MWL provide evidence of numerous reports which were regularly updated as Mr M’s income requests were made. It ran many scenarios which included stress testing to assess the impact of market falls on the longevity of Mr M’s fund in drawdown. I am aware that Mr M has made a further complaint about the accuracy of the cash flow models which is dealt with elsewhere. I would comment that the issue that Mr M raised is that the cash flow modelling did not correctly reflect his remaining entitlement to tax free cash. Without meaning to stray into the merits of that complaint, I don’t think that the error that is referred to means that the cashflow modelling was not done, or that it did not serve its purpose of assessing the impact of the income planning. Did MWL review and implement changes to investment? Mr M was aware of his fund value and was updated regarding the investment performance in reviews. The model portfolios that were recommended for Mr M were actively managed to ensure that they continued to be invested in line with their stated aims. MWL have provided evidence of rebalancing which occurred regularly, in response to the need to move funds to cash to allow the income withdrawals. I am therefore satisfied that this part of its service was provided. Did MWL provide access to their client portal? The last facet of the services that MWL undertook to provide Mr M has not been disputed in this complaint. Therefore I am satisfied that Mr M had this access. Summary Situations where there is a breakdown in trust between a customer and their advisor are

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obviously regrettable. I understand that Mr M has therefore looked very closely at every single part of the service that MWL provided him. And it has led to him making numerous complaints. He is perfectly entitled to do this, and our role allows us to consider what we think is the crux of the complaint and independently look at what happened. Having done that here, I am not persuaded that MWL have treated Mr M unfairly. So I don’t think it is fair or reasonable to ask MWL to refund the charges as Mr M has asked. My final decision For the above reasons I am not upholding Mr M’s complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr M to accept or reject my decision before 1 April 2026. Gary Lane Ombudsman

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