‘St James’s Place took a year to pay £20,000 for my mother’s care’

This seemed to resolve the issue – or so Mr Coles thought. It was only after finally distributing his mother’s estate in July 2023, a year later, that he discovered the £20,000 was still missing.

NatWest confirmed to Mr Coles that they had received the funds and sent them back to the wealth manager.

St James’s Place finally managed to locate the missing £20,000 after Telegraph Money got in contact.

A spokesman told Mr Coles that the administration centre had misunderstood the details around the Power of Attorney document and asked his adviser for more information.

Mr Coles held Power of Attorney “jointly and severally” with his brother. Power of Attorney held “jointly” means permission is required from parties before instructions can be carried out, whereas “jointly and severally” means either attorney can act alone. The administration team seemed to misunderstand that Mr Coles held the document “jointly and severally”.

The resulting delay meant the payment was made on 5 May. NatWest returned it on the following day.

A spokesman for St James’s Place said: “We apologise for any trouble and upset the delay in returning funds may have caused. When the funds were returned by NatWest we were unable to identify the client these belonged to which has resulted in the delay. We recognise that the usual high quality service that all clients should expect to receive from St James’s Place has fallen short in this instance and we have therefore returned the funds, with interest owing alongside a gesture of goodwill.”

As well as returning the £20,000, St James’s Place has offered to pay Mr Coles £1,871 in interest, increased to £3,871 in recognition of the upset caused.

Mr Coles said he had no complaint with his St James’s Place adviser, who pushed for an “urgent investigation” to be opened and encouraged him to complain. He said the blame seemed to lie with its administration centre, adding, “This is not the service I used to get.”

He continued that he was “disappointed” that it took so long for the missing £20,000 to be returned.

St James’s Place’s shares plunged as low as 16pc on Friday following reports it is under pressure from the regulator to overhaul its fee structure.

The wealth manager’s charging structure has come under increasing scrutiny since the introduction of the new Consumer Duty, which requires firms to prove they are offering fair value to their customers.