We offer all potential new clients an initial meeting, at no cost and without any obligation. We call it a Discovery Meeting.
This will typically take place at our offices in Newton Aycliffe where we have all our resources to hand. We have free parking and plenty of coffee. We will have an informal chat about your current circumstances and what you are looking to achieve from your planning process. By the end of the meeting we should have a broad picture of your financial position and know if we can help.
Following the Discovery Meeting, if we believe we can add sufficient value, we will write to you with a personalised agreement to confirm the detailed service that we propose, and how you will benefit. We will also explain the exact cost of this service.
It will then be up to you to decide whether to proceed, by returning the agreement.
If we don’t feel that we can add sufficient value, we’ll tell you. Your time won’t have been wasted however, as we will have given you a great deal of guidance in the Discovery Meeting. Many people tell us it was the most useful hour they’ve ever spent discussing their financial future.
To bring meaning to your money, we need to know where you are now and where you want to be in the future. We can then work with you to map out the journey.
We will need to gather details on your income, expenditure, savings, investments, pensions (including occupational and State Pensions) and protection policies. We also look at your position with regard to income tax, capital gains tax, pension taxes, and inheritance tax. Finally, we need to consider your Will and Powers of Attorney. A deep and thorough understanding of your finances means that we have the best platform to make your money work in the best way for you.
At the end of this process, you will fully understand your current situation. We will undertake a Financial Planning meeting whereby you will have had opportunity to look into the future to see how it looks compared to your own hopes and expectations. We can consider a range of scenarios to settle on the most suitable Financial Plan to meet your goals.
We will make recommendations for change and point you in the right direction. You will certainly be better informed and will understand the steps you can now take to shape your own future.
At the end of the Financial Planning Review process you will fully understand your current situation. You will have had an opportunity to look into the future to see how it looks compared to your own hopes and expectations. We will make recommendations for change and point you in the right direction. You will certainly be better informed and will understand the steps you can now take to shape your own future.
Let’s be clear. Whilst we love what we do and can literally change people’s lives through our work, we do need to charge for our knowledge, skill and expertise. You may also have looked at other financial planners websites and found details of fees sadly lacking. That’s not surprising as a survey showed that fewer than 10% of companies quote their fees. We believe in transparency.
We charge a fixed fee for our full Financial Planning Review. This is £5,000.
We then charge an implementation fee of 1% of assets brought under our management up to £1million and 0.5% thereafter) for new clients taking an ongoing service. This is waived on the first £500,000 of assets brought under our management.
The agreed fee may be paid by invoice or deducted, with your consent, from investment or pension if one is implemented for you. The fee is only payable once we have completed the Financial Planning Review and any Implementation work. This means that in most cases there will not be an upfront outlay from you.
This is an extremely competitive cost for such a comprehensive service, when compared to the more usual cost of investing where there is no detailed planning service. For example, many providers charge a 3% initial fee just for investment without the wider financial planning service. On a portfolio of £500,000 a 3% initial fee would work out at £15,000.
By comparison, our fee for the full Financial Planning Review and the investment placement would be £5,000.
And remember attending the Discovery Meeting is at no cost. We’ll only offer our service if we think it’s right for you and we can add sufficient value to cover our fee.
This is the core of our service; checking that you remain on track by constant reappraisal and forward planning.
You will receive all the support you require, and, to use a car analogy, we will fully service, wash, and polish your affairs at least once a year. We will keep an eye on the financial world to ensure that you continue to make best use of your resources on an ongoing basis.
For our ongoing service we charge 1% plus VAT on assets under our management up to £1million and 0.5% thereafter with a minimum fee of £2,750 pa plus VAT. This charge is against investments and pensions we manage (it excludes cash accounts and property).
Example: if the value of your investible assets is £500,000 we would charge you £5,000 pa plus VAT.
Our typical total portfolio charges are very competitive in the market at 0.53% per year
Every year your fees for the period are clearly set out in writing, in pounds and pence!
Our fees are payable by periodic invoice, standing order or if it is acceptable to you, by adviser charging against the funds in the investment and pension portfolios that we look after for you.