Investments & Pensions
We provide you with an initial consultation free of charge. This helps us to understand your financial objectives and we will confirm how we can support you in working towards these goals. We will also discuss the cost of our services at this meeting.
We charge for our services by way of a fee. These fees are based on a percentage of the amount you invest, subject to a minimum fee. The two stages of this process are explained below:
Stage 1 – Financial Review and Recommendation
This can be a continuation from the initial discussion, where agreed, or a further appointment. This stage includes the following services:
- gathering of information about your existing financial arrangements and full personal circumstances;
- understanding of your investment knowledge and attitude and tolerance towards investment risk;
- recommendation of an asset allocation model that matches your risk profile and the subsequent assessment and suitability of any existing holdings;
- preparation of our recommendations to you;
- arranging a second appointment to explain and discuss our recommendations in detail;
Our charge for this service is a fixed fee of £1,500 payable on provision of the report containing our recommendation(s) to you. This fee will be waived wholly or in part should you decide to implement any of our recommendations.
Stage 2 – Policy Arrangement and Implementation Lump Sum Investments or Transfers
Should you instruct us to proceed with (any of) our recommendation(s) we will act for you in the following ways:
- handle all fund and policy administration on your behalf;
- provide regular updates to keep you informed of progress;
- ensure all your documents are issued in line with your expectations;
- provide confirmation of all actions taken on your behalf in writing
Our charge for this service is based on a percentage of the amount you invest and/or transfer. These charges are applied as follows:
- 1% on the value of your funds that are invested by us*
*Our maximum fee for ‘Policy Arrangement and Implementation’ is capped at £10,000
Example 1; if we arrange an investment on your behalf for £50,000 our Policy Arrangement & Implementation fee would be £500. As this is less than the ‘Financial Review and Recommendation’ fee of £1,500 we would charge you an additional £1,000 as the balance. The total fee payable would be £1,500.
Example 2; if we arrange investments on your behalf totalling £250,000 our Policy Arrangement & Implementation fee would be £2,500 (i.e.1% of £250,000) As this exceeds the ‘Financial Review and Recommendation’ fee no other charges would be applied. The total fee payable would be £2,500.
Example 3; if we arrange investments on your behalf totalling £1,250,000 our Policy Arrangement & Implementation fee would be £12,500. As this exceeds our Policy Arrangement and Implementation fee cap we would reduce the fee in line with our maximum charge so the total payable would be £10,000.
Recommendation & Implementation – Regular Savings/Investments (only)
Our charge for recommending and implementing a new regular contribution savings or investment plan (only) is a fixed fee of £1,200.
You can either pay this directly on commencement of the policy or you can facilitate the implementation fee through your policy. If you would like to pay the implementation fee through your policy this will be charged at £100.00 per month over the first 12 months.
Should you decide to pay this charge through your policy and payments to the policy subsequently cease, we will calculate the total payments received to date and charge you the balance against the implementation fee.
For example, if you invest £500 per month our total policy arrangement and implementation charge will be £1,200. We will deduct £100.00 from each monthly contribution until paid in full. Should payments cease after month 6 (and £600 has been collected) the difference will be charged to you i.e. £600.
VAT
Under current legislation our services are not subject to VAT but should this change in future and VAT becomes payable, we will notify you before conducting any further work.
Ongoing Advice & Investment Management Services
It is important to review every investment you hold and at regular intervals. At the time of, or prior to, our recommendation to you we will discuss our on-going service proposition. This is confirmed in our ‘Ongoing Advice & Investment Management Service Agreement’ which is available upon request.
Non-Investment Protection Contracts
For non-investment protection contracts, we are an intermediary and will act on your behalf when providing advice and making our personal recommendation(s) to you. We will do this based on a fair and personal analysis of insurers for term assurance, income protection, and critical illness.
We do not charge a fee as we will receive commission from the provider/insurer after the policy has been placed on risk.
General Insurance Contracts
For general insurance contracts, we are an intermediary and will act on your behalf when recommending an insurer based on your demands and needs from a fair analysis of the market. The insurers we consider will be listed to you when we carry out our research.
We do not charge a fee as we will receive commission from the provider/insurer after the policy has been placed on risk.
Mortgages
We charge a fee of £299 for providing advice and submitting your mortgage application. This fee becomes payable on application.
We will receive and retain any commission paid by the lender when your mortgage completes. This amount will be confirmed by the lender in their disclosure document.
Should you wish you can request to view the commission rates from each of the lenders we have considered at the time that we make our recommendation to you.
Please note, our fee will still be charged should the lender reject your mortgage application due to you not disclosing any material information about your personal situation. It should also be noted we do not provide a refund should you decide not to proceed with the mortgage loan after we have made a recommendation to you.
Lifetime Mortgages
We charge a fixed fee of £995 for providing advice and submitting your lifetime mortgage application. This fee becomes payable on completion.
We will receive and retain any commission paid by the lender when your mortgage completes. This amount will be confirmed by the lender in their disclosure document.
Should you wish you can request to view the commission rates from each of the lenders we have considered at the time that we make our recommendation to you.
Please note, our fee will still be charged should the lender reject your application due to you not disclosing any material information about your personal situation. It should also be noted we do not provide a refund should you decide not to proceed with the loan after we have made a recommendation to you.