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Should provider charge to complete a letter of authority?

ended 05. October 2026

R3 Wealth IFA Riz Malik says he was surprised when a SIPP provider asked for £128 plus VAT to answer what he considered straightforward questions about a client’s current arrangement.

The provider said the request would take about an hour to complete and wouldn’t proceed until the fee was paid.

Malik said he hadn’t previously encountered a charge for this type of information request and questioned whether such fees could hinder advisers from reviewing existing arrangements properly.

Have other advisers had similar experiences? Is this consistent with the Consumer Duty focus on supporting good customer outcomes, or does it create an unnecessary barrier to advice?

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Rob MansfieldVerified
Independent Financial Advisor at Rootes Wealth Management
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It's really poor that a provider isn't willing to produce even a basic output of the account. It increases the risk of a client being ripped off. A key tenet of the consumer duty is helping clients achieve their financial objectives, . If the product is fairly priced and offering good value for the client, what have they got to hide?
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Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
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If an adviser has to pay £153.60 simply to establish what a client already owns, I think we should be asking whether administration has turned into a tollbooth.

An adviser cannot properly assess whether an existing pension remains suitable without accurate information on charges, benefits, guarantees, investment options and exit terms.

I would not automatically call any information fee a Consumer Duty breach. If someone is requesting genuinely complex, bespoke work, charging may be reasonable. But routine information needed to review an existing arrangement is different.

The danger is that these charges discourage proper due diligence, particularly on smaller pension pots where the economics of advice are already tight.

Consumer Duty is supposed to help customers pursue good financial outcomes, not make understanding their existing product unnecessarily expensive.

Clients should not have to pay a ransom for clarity.