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Financial Negligence – Everything You Need to Know

Have you lost money as a result of financial negligence?

There will be several occasions in your life that you will need professional financial assistance. An accountant, a broker, pension advisor or another form of advisor may be involved. You expect the professional to behave in your best interests at all times.

Many people hire financial advisers to help them better manage their money and reach their financial objectives. Unfortunately, financial advisers who provide them with inaccurate, deceptive, or negligent financial advice will lead them astray. As more reports of financial incompetence emerge, Irish laws have been reviewed to reflect the value of offering reliable financial advice. These laws are intended to protect victims of negligent financial advice, who may also suffer catastrophic financial damages as a result of their actions.

As a result, these claimants will be able to pursue financial negligence claims to recover compensation for their damages. If you think you have been given negligent financial advice, continue reading to learn more about filing a lawsuit against a financial advisor and the steps involved.

What is Financial Negligence?

Financial practitioners are highly qualified and well-trained to achieve excellent performance. However, any limited or Independent Financial Advisor (IFA) must be licensed by the appropriate Authority and/or Irish Central Bank.

This ensures that the financial professional must adhere to their regulatory body’s strict regulatory laws. As a result, as their client, they owe you a professional duty of care. In most cases, the financial advisor will perform their duties with fair care and expertise. However, mistakes do happen, and standards can fall short of your expectations and the expectations of a reasonable similar advisor.

Can You Sue for Negligence?

The consequences of bad or misleading advice can be devastating to your financial well-being. It can cause a lot of anxiety and worry. Worse still, it is easily avoidable. So, if a specialist you trusted fails you, you may have a reasonable ground to sue for financial negligence.

What is a Financial Negligence Claim?

Also known as a financial planning compensation claim, a financial negligence claim is a way for people who have lost money because of poor, deceptive, or negligent financial advice to get paid. This type of claim is typically made against a professional financial adviser or his or her employer. However, there must be concrete proof that your adviser acted negligently and as a result you have suffered a loss.

What is an Example of Negligence?

Individual choice determines how each person handles their own finances. It is a service industry with a wide range of goods and services to meet those needs. It also means that there are a number of explanations why you may have a legitimate financial advisor negligence argument.

The following are some examples of financial negligence claims that we can help with:

• Recommending financial products that are risky or unsuitable for your circumstances after considering your personal circumstances.

• Obtaining inadequate information about your personal circumstances, financial condition, financial priorities, financial needs, and risk tolerance.

• Recommending financial products for which they earn commission despite the fact that they are too risky or unsuitable for your circumstances.

• Failure to warn you of all of the risks involved in a plan.

• Rather than a balanced and diversified strategy, recommending a large investment in one product.

• Failure to consider the impact of a strategy on your retirement, especially for older investors.

• Failure to provide alternative investment options advice

It’s important to remember that financial advisers aren’t to blame for any poor investment decision. Some investments can increase or decrease in value due to market volatility rather than poor financial advice, and financial advisers cannot be held liable for such fluctuations.

Who Can Be Prosecuted for Professional Negligence in the Financial Sector?

Financial advisers, both controlled and unregulated, have been subjected to a rise in claims in recent years. In principle, a professional negligence claim may be brought against someone in the financial sector who owes you a legal duty of care, has breached that duty, and you have incurred damages as a result of that breach.

The following are some examples of compensation claims by profession:

• Negligent accountants

• Negligent financial advisers

• Negligent auditors

• Negligent insurance brokers

• Negligent actuaries

• Negligent lenders

• Negligent tax advisers

• Negligent stockbrokers

• Negligent valuers

• Negligent pension advisors

Requirements for Filing Financial Negligence Claims – How do you Prove Professional Negligence?

To sue a professional for negligence, a claimant must satisfy three elements of the civil standard of proof (i.e., the claimant must prove that the financial adviser’s breach of duty caused the claimant to incur a loss on a balance of probabilities).

1. Prove that the financial adviser/accountant/insurance broker owes you a duty of care: the courts are constantly evolving tests to determine whether a tortious duty of care is owed or not owed. When the professional can be seen to have objectively taken liability, there is a duty of care.

2. Show that the financial adviser/accountant/insurance broker has violated the duty of care owed to you: the burden of proof would obviously vary based on the facts of the case. A complainant must prove that the violation demonstrates that the financial advisor/accountant/insurance broker failed to meet the expectations of a reasonably qualified adviser in that sector.

3. Establish that the violation by the financial adviser/accountant/insurance broker resulted in your loss: you must establish both factual and legal causation. The test for factual causation is that you would not have suffered the loss if there had been no breach of the duty of care owed to you.

How Do I Claim for Negligence?

Do you have a professional malpractice claim? If you need professional legal advice, please contact us as soon as possible so that we can determine the legal merits of your case.

After discussing the claim with you and assessing and advising you on the merits of the proposed professional negligence action, we will also take on such claims on a no win no fee basis.

Is There a Time Limit for Filing Financial Negligence Claims?

There is a time limit in which you must make a claim for compensation in all cases of financial negligence. This is normally six years from the date of the action or judgment that caused you to incur a financial injury or “loss of opportunity” in financial negligence claims.

You will also be entitled to file a lawsuit if the negligent advice was not discovered until much later. In such instances, the “date of knowledge” – or the date on which you first become aware of the error or judgment is the date when time starts running.

How Much Compensation Will You Receive?

If your financial negligence claim is successful, you will be paid to the point that your financial condition was before the financial negligence occurred. You will also be compensated for any lost earnings or losses incurred in attempting to rectify the mistake.

Our firm offers the best expert help to individuals seeking to sue a professional for negligence. In order to win your case, you will need a report from an independent expert who confirms that there has been a breach of the duty of care owed to you, and that you have sustained losses as a result of that breach.

Call us today 01903 6250 for any professional financial negligence claims in Ireland.