Scottish Widows, the life arm of Lloyds TSB, has become the latest group to impose restrictions on investors wishing to redeem their cash.

It has imposed a 180-day delay period for certain transactions involving its £1bn Life Property fund and £1.1bn Pension Property fund. The group is writing to some 200,000 policy holders informing them of the changes.

The move by Scottish Widows will affect policyholders in these funds who request full or partial redemptions, transfers or switches. But the delay does not apply on death, on retirement, to regular pension payments, to critical illness claims or at a policy’s maturity date and the group said that existing regular withdrawals are also unaffected. The restrictions do not apply to any other Scottish Widows funds, including SWIP’s Property Trust.

The group said: ‘The 180-day delay period for requests to switch between or withdraw from the funds is allowed for within the policy provisions and we are taking this action to be fair to all policyholders. Unlike many other asset classes, commercial property can take time to buy and sell.

‘The delay means that we can implement an orderly programme of sales over a longer period, with the aim of providing liquidity within a reasonable period for those who want to leave the funds. At the same time our fund managers will have the opportunity to obtain fair values for properties we sell, protecting the performance of the funds for the majority of policyholders who wish to remain invested.’

Other property funds have made similar moves to restrict access to their assets in order to prevent a Northern Rock-style run on their resources, including Morley, M&G and Scottish Equitable.