Property Syndication
Ombud comes down on advisers who push property syndication schemes
Thirteen years after parting with money, nine years after lodging complaint, and a year after her death, the watchdog orders financial advisers to reimburse woman’s investment
Relief is finally coming for ill-advised property syndication investors — but for some it is too late. Lenita McCabe was a 51-year-old widow with two children on a monthly income of R1,212 when Impectus Brokers & Financial Services advised her to invest R150,000 in the BlueZone Spitskop Village Property syndication scheme. She lost all of it, tried to get it back, then died in 2018 having never seen the return of her money. On March 29 2019, the ombud ordered Impectus, and Francois van der Walt, to pay the R150,000 plus interest at 10% per annum from the date of the order into her estate. McCabe had inherited R330,000 from a policy on the death of her husband. She bought a property and later sold it, using some of the profit to make the investment. She had sought advice from Impectus because Van der Walt had been her parents’ trusted financial planner for many years. He showed her Sanlam, Liberty Life and Spitskop products, and the latter was decided on.
McCabe had tried to ...
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