// UK INVESTMENT MIS-SELLING CHECKER
Sold the wronginvestment? Find outwhat to do.
Poor advice, misleading promotions and unsuitable products cost UK savers and pensioners every year. Check whether you may have a claim, which route could recover your money, and how long you have. Free, private and without obligation.
For savers / pensioners / families of investors / former scheme members / solicitors
- 8suitability checks
- 3recovery routes compared
- 5minutes to a first view
- £0to check — £0, no obligation
Compensation
If you were sold an investment that did not suit you, you may be entitled to compensation — and the clock may already be running.
You do not need the paperwork in order to ask. Start with the checker, or speak to a solicitor at Edward & Amaury Solicitors and we will tell you frankly whether there is anything worth pursuing. Free, in confidence, and no obligation.
01 The checker
Bad advice has a price.
Most people who were sold the wrong investment never find out. The paperwork is dense, the rules are technical, and the clock is quietly running. We translate it: was the product suitable, was the risk explained, who is accountable, and which route could get your money back.
The checker is not a valuation tool and it will never tell you what you are owed. It tells you which of the eight suitability checks your circumstances trigger, and what to do next.
// EIGHT SUITABILITY CHECKS · THREE ROUTES · ONE NEXT STEP
- 8suitability checks
- 3recovery routes
- 1clear next step
- Every flag comes with its reason, in the words of your own answers
- Each limit and deadline is cited to the official source we read
- Nothing is sold to you, and no figure is ever estimated
- The summary is yours: download it, keep it, send it to a solicitor
DAMNUMloss
02 The routes
Complain. Escalate. Recover.
There is rarely one door. There are three main routes, plus the scheme of last resort where a firm has failed. Here they are side by side, so you can see which one fits the facts you actually have.
What happened
Advice
A personal recommendation that did not suit you
Promotion
A financial promotion that misled you about risk or protection
Product
Something unsuitable, illiquid, unregulated or mis-described
Platform
A firm that accepted an asset it should have questioned
Where it can go
01
Firm complaint — free, responded to in writing within 8 weeks
02
Financial Ombudsman Service — free to consumers, award limit £455,000 for cases referred on or after 1 April 2026 about acts or omissions on or after 1 April 2019
03
FSCS — where the firm has failed, up to £85,000 per eligible person, per firm for firms that failed after 1 April 2019
04
Court — for losses beyond those limits, subject to the limitation rules
The clock, in one paragraph. Firms generally have 8 weeks to respond to a complaint. If you are unhappy, you generally have 6 months from the final response to go to the Ombudsman. Different time limits apply to court claims, and they keep running while a complaint sits with a firm or the Ombudsman. See the sourced time-limit guide for the rules we read, with links to the FCA and the Ombudsman.
// Three routes, three answers
- Firm complaint — free, fast to start, and the gateway to the Ombudsman
- Ombudsman — free, and it decides what is fair, not only what a rule says
- FSCS — only where an authorised firm has failed; free to claim
- Court — the only route for large losses, and the only one with a real costs risk
// The word
Restitutio in integrum
restitutio in integrum · Latin, legal phrase
This is the principle behind most compensation for investment loss. You are not being rewarded; you are being put back where you would have been. It is also why compensation is normally worked out by comparing your position with the position suitable advice would have produced — not by looking at what the market did afterwards.
We quote no jurist and attribute no aphorism to anyone: the phrase is a legal term of art, and the work it does in your case is done by the documents, not by a maxim.
What this means in practice
- The starting point is where you were before the wrong, not where you hoped to be
- Interest may be added if you were deprived of the money — the Ombudsman typically asks firms to use a time-weighted average of the Bank of England base rate plus one percentage point for complaints referred from 1 January 2026
- A fall in the market is not the wrong; the sale is
- The Ombudsman can recommend a firm pays more than its award limit, but the firm need not accept that
03 How it works
From “something feels wrong” to a clear view.
Six steps. You can stop at any one of them, and the first three cost nothing and require no documents.
Tell us what you were sold
Product type, roughly when, who sold it and how it reached you. Two minutes of answers, no documents needed to start.
Identify the firm
We prompt you to check the FCA Register and whether the firm is still trading. That single fact decides whether FSCS may be available later.
Run the suitability checks
Eight plain-English tests: risk appetite against product risk, concentration of your savings, liquidity needs, objectives, how the risks were explained, charges, advice against execution-only, and vulnerability.
Check the clock
Your dates against the typical time limits for each route, using the rules we have read from the FCA, the Ombudsman and the legislation itself.
Compare routes
Complain, escalate to the Ombudsman, claim from FSCS, instruct a solicitor, join a group action — or the honest answer that on what you have told us it is unlikely to succeed.
Your summary
A one-page summary by email: the indicator, the checks that fired, where you are on the clock, the next step and the documents to gather.
// The four rooms
I. FACTA
what happened
What you were sold, by whom, and in what words. The facts come before the argument, always.
II. LEX
the rules that apply
The rules in force at the time of the sale, and the standard the firm was held to.
III. TEMPUS
the clock
The deadlines for each route, because the deadline decides the case more often than the merits do.
IV. VIA
the route
Which of the three routes fits your facts, and what that route actually requires of you.
// The verdict panel
What the checker actually returns.
A terminal-style panel because it is honest about what it is: a rule set. It types its status, then reveals the result list. Nothing on it is a prediction.
INDICIUMan indication, not a judgment
status: indicators_ready
- // INDICATOR
- Strong / Moderate / Limited / Not enough information — with the reasons, never a percentage
- // FLAGS
- Which of the eight checks raised a flag, and which did not
- // CLOCK
- Your time-limit position by route, with the rule we relied on
- // NEXT
- A suggested next step, and the documents to gather
- // SUMMARY
- A one-page summary you can download and send to a solicitor
- // NOTICE
- Indicators only. Not legal or financial advice. Not a prediction of outcome.
04 Products
Every product. Every pitfall.
Nine pillars, one per product family. Each has the same shape: a direct answer, an “is this you?” list, how a claim works for that product, the deadlines, the routes, the documents and the sources.
Pensions and SIPPs
Pensions and SIPPs
A pension transfer complaint usually turns on what was given up: an income for life, an inflation rise, a spouse’s benefit, or a guaranteed annuity rate. The second question is what the money was put into afterwards.
ISAs and funds
ISAs and funds
The wrapper is rarely the problem. The complaint is about what sat inside it, the charges, and whether a switch was justified. Banks and platforms are the firms most often involved.
Bonds and mini-bonds
Bonds and mini-bonds
A mini-bond is a loan to a company. Most were not regulated products, so most were not FSCS protected — which means the complaint has to be about how it was promoted and what you were told about protection.
Structured products
Structured products
The conditions are the product: barriers, observation dates and autocalls. A capital-at-risk product sold to someone who wanted capital security is a complaint that does not depend on the market at all.
Unregulated schemes (UCIS)
Unregulated schemes
Land, lending, property development, energy, storage. Not authorised in the way ordinary funds are, and generally not FSCS protected. The question becomes what you were told about regulation and protection.
Adviser negligence
Adviser negligence
The test is whether the adviser fell below the standard of a reasonably competent adviser, judged on what was known at the time — and whether that failure caused the loss. A bad outcome alone proves nothing.
Investment scams
Investment scams
Report first: the FCA, Action Fraud and your bank. Scam losses are pursued against the fraudster, not through the Ombudsman — unless a bank, platform or adviser failed in its own duties.
05 Warning signs
Six signs it wasn’t right for you.
SUGGESTIO FALSIa false statement
“Guaranteed”, “safe” or “low risk”
Language like that does not belong on a risky product. If it appears in the marketing, keep it.
Pushed to move quickly
A pension transfer or a large investment that had to be done by a deadline is worth asking about in writing.
High risk, cautious profile
If the risk rating sat above the record of what you told them you could accept, that mismatch is checkable.
Too much in one place
Concentration is a separate question from risk: even a suitable product can be unsuitable if it took most of your money.
Charges never explained
Exit penalties and ongoing charges that only appeared after signing are a disclosure complaint, not a performance complaint.
The firm was not regulated
Check the FCA Firm Checker. If nobody was authorised for what they did, the routes change completely.
06 Who it’s for
Every investor. Every situation.
Savers & pensioners
You were sold something that did not match what you told them.
Start with the eight checks and the time limits. If three or more warning signs describe your situation, a written complaint to the firm costs nothing and starts the clock that matters.
Families of someone who died
An estate can pursue a complaint the deceased never finished.
Executors and administrators can continue a complaint, and both the Ombudsman and FSCS have processes for it. Documents are the whole task here, and the deadlines do not pause — take advice early.
Former scheme members
Group claims run on a different clock and a different budget.
Where a scheme or a firm has failed, the practical questions are who the defendant is, who is funding the claim, and what the funded terms are. Ask for the deduction and the failure scenario in writing.
Self-employed & business owners
The routes that are open to you depend on how you invested.
FSCS eligibility and Ombudsman eligibility both depend on who the complainant is and what the activity was. That is worth checking before spending time on a route that may not accept you.
Solicitors & funders
A structured first view of the facts, before a file is opened.
We collect a consistent set of answers, run a documented rule set, and hand over a summary with the time-limit position stated by route. We do not give advice, do not act, and do not take a share of anything.
07 Why this site
Everyone else starts with a sales call. We start with the facts.
A comparison of routes rather than of businesses. We name no competitor, and we disparage no other service — there is a legitimate place for all three columns below.
| This checker | Going alone | Using a solicitor directly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free to start | Yes | Yes | No |
| Plain-English explanation of the checks | Yes — all eight, with the rule behind each | Depends what you find | Yes, but billed |
| Time-limit check | Yes, by route, with the source | You have to work it out | Yes |
| Route comparison | Yes — complain, Ombudsman, FSCS, court | Rarely | Partly |
| Fees disclosed upfront | £0 — nothing is charged by us | Not applicable | Ask for the terms in writing |
| Works alongside your own adviser or solicitor | Yes — we produce a summary for them | Not applicable | Not applicable |
08 Trust
Information you can check.
We do not publish awards, press logos, review scores, years of experience or a team photograph. We publish who wrote the page, who reviewed it, when it was last checked, and where every rule comes from.
Written by
The mis-sold investment team at Edward & Amaury Solicitors
Every page names who wrote it. Ours are written and maintained in-house by Edward & Amaury Solicitors, and every rule we state is cited to its official source rather than taken on our authority.
Legally reviewed by
[CONFIRM: name of the reviewing solicitor]
We do not invent a reviewer. Where a page states a legal rule, it rests on the cited source and not on our own authority, and nothing here is advice on your claim.
Last reviewed
12 October 2026
Shown on every guide and used as the sitemap’s lastmod, so the date is in the crawl record as well as on the page.
Sources on every page
Each page that states a rule, a limit or a deadline carries a visible Sources list naming the publisher, the page and the date we checked it. Our primary sources are the FCA, the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, MoneyHelper, The Pensions Ombudsman and legislation.gov.uk.
FIAT JUSTITIAlet justice be done
09 Cost
Checking is free. Know every cost before you commit.
Two of the four routes cost you nothing at all. The other two involve someone taking a share of what you recover, and the terms are where people are surprised. None of the figures below are ours: the fee cap is the FCA’s.
| Route | What it costs you | Who to ask |
|---|---|---|
| This checker | Nothing. We do not charge and we do not take a share. | — |
| Complaining to the firm | Nothing. | The firm’s complaints team |
| Financial Ombudsman Service | Free to consumers. | The Ombudsman’s own complaint checker |
| FSCS | Free to claim. | FSCS |
| Solicitors | Often “no win, no fee”. A success fee is usually deducted from what you recover, and disbursements or insurance may be payable in other circumstances. | Ask for the fee terms in writing, and what you pay if the claim fails. |
| Claims management company | Capped by the FCA for financial services claims started on or after 1 March 2022: 15%–30% of the award depending on size, with absolute caps from £420 to £10,000 excluding VAT. | The cap does not apply to a claim pursued in court. |
10 FAQ
The questions people actually search for.
Short answers first, then the detail. Every answer on this page is also marked up as FAQ structured data, so the visible text and the markup always agree.
Basics
What counts as a mis-sold investment?
What are my rights if I have been mis-sold a financial product?
What happens if an investment platform or firm goes bust?
Can I complain directly to the FCA?
What is a mis-sold investment claim example?
Routes & costs
Should I complain to the firm or go to the Financial Ombudsman?
When does the FSCS pay out?
Do I need a solicitor?
What does "no win, no fee" really mean?
What is a Section 138D claim?
Deadlines & evidence
How long do I have to claim?
What documents should I gather?
Can I claim if the firm has closed?
Can the family of someone who has died claim?
QUID DAMNI? — WHAT DID IT COST YOU?
Find out in five minutes, before the clock decides.
Free, private, no obligation. You get an indicator, the eight checks, where you are against the deadlines, and the documents to gather.
Authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority
SRA number 800525
Check this number on the SRA registerImportant
Edward & Amaury Limited, trading as Edward & Amaury Solicitors, is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, SRA number 800525. This site is general information, not legal advice, and you are not our client until we are instructed. See risk and disclaimer.
Nothing invented
No testimonials, no review scores, no case results, no “£X recovered”. We publish no figure we cannot derive from our own tool or cite to an official source.
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