Do You Need Financial Advice? When To Get It, When Not To Get It Discussion Area

dunstonh

Would it be a Financial Advisor he would need to seek advice from?

I doubt there are any FAs that get involved in that market. Only a small number of IFAs would. Last I read, the third party market for buying endowments was virtually dead.

If his policy is a conventional with profits plan, then look up traded endowments online. If it is unit linked then you cannot sell that type of plan as it has a daily value (and if someone wanted the units they would buy them at the daily value so no need to pay any more).

dunstonh

wales100 wrote: »

another useful site I've found to find independent financial advisers and mortgage advisers is https://www.adviserindex.co.uk, they have free help guides on their too.

Just took a look at that and wasnt impressed. Graphically very good but coverage is dire. Only 2 firms in our county are on there and only half a dozen in the whole of east anglia. You would expect thousands in that area alone.

I would stick to https://www.unbiased.co.uk as that has near 99% coverage.

Silverbird

dunstonh wrote: »

I doubt there are any FAs that get involved in that market. Only a small number of IFAs would. Last I read, the third party market for buying endowments was virtually dead.

If his policy is a conventional with profits plan, then look up traded endowments online. If it is unit linked then you cannot sell that type of plan as it has a daily value (and if someone wanted they units they would buy them at the daily value so no need to pay any more).

Wow, that was quick! Thank you ever so much.

I am going to cut and paste your reply in an email to my Dad.

I can't thank you enough for your time and trouble. :beer:

djn023

Hi,

My problem is that we had an endowment mature recently and we received a cheque through the post to pay off part of our mortgage. As we are currently tied in to a discounted rate, we cannot pay the whole amount off in one go. We can pay off approximately £6500 though, because this would be within our overpayment limit.

I did not think there would be any problem, because I presumed that we would only be able to pay off the part of the mortgage that this endowment was intended to pay off, which was an interest only loan that we took out when we bought our first house many years ago. Since that time we have re-mortgaged several times and so our mortgage now consists on several different parts, some interest only and some repayment.

However, when I came to make the payment to my Building Society, they said that I could pay off any part of the mortgage that I wished to do so, either a bit off each part or all off one part.

I tried to contact a financial advisor that helped us to re-mortgage previously, and was supposed to remain our financial advisor for the remainder of our mortgage term (cost us about £600), but it seems that they have gone out of business.

Does anyone know of any free or low cost independent financial advice that is available to resolve this issue?

jem16

djn023 wrote: »

Does anyone know of any free or low cost independent financial advice that is available to resolve this issue?

You will not get free advice - the IFA has to be paid for his work.

Go to https://www.unbiased.co.uk to find an IFA in your area. Perhaps see a few and discuss the fees involved.

djn023

Thanks for the reply,

I will go and have a look.

alan2029

Hi, Can anyone tell me if this is right.

I went to an IFA about 4 years ago and made an investment for which the IFA took his commission.

A year later when I went back to review the investment I was told that to retain his services I would have to start paying him a monthly fee, and this was something that all IFA's were now having to do.

Over the course of these past 4 years he has provided me with letters to send to the investment company to utilise my ISA allowance and advised me to switch just one of the funds invested in to another fund.

So, is it right for him to charge for his services, having already taken the large commission on the initial investment. Or is this the norm? As i feel that I don't appear to be getting a great deal for the fee I am being charged when very little has changed since my initial investment.

Thanks

Alan

jem16

alan2029 wrote: »

A year later when I went back to review the investment I was told that to retain his services I would have to start paying him a monthly fee, and this was something that all IFA's were now having to do.

If you are retaining the IFA on a servicing basis then yes a fee going forward should be agreed. It doesn't have to be a monthly fee though, it could be an annual fee. However agreeing the fee should also see the natural 0.5% trail commission being rebated.

Over the course of these past 4 years he has provided me with letters to send to the investment company to utilise my ISA allowance and advised me to switch just one of the funds invested in to another fund.

So it sounds like your IFA is doing Bed&Isa to move unwrapped investments into the ISA each tax year. This would be covered by the servicing fee or you would have to pay a transaction fee each time. Fund switches and receommendations would also be covered by a servicing arrangement.

So, is it right for him to charge for his services, having already taken the large commission on the initial investment. Or is this the norm? As i feel that I don't appear to be getting a great deal for the fee I am being charged when very little has changed since my initial investment.

If he is doing work each year such as Bed&ISA, rebalancing and recommending fund switches then yes it's the norm to charge either a monthly/annual fee or with trail commission being rebated or for the IFA to take the trail commission.



Alan[/QUOTE]

dunstonh

A year later when I went back to review the investment I was told that to retain his services I would have to start paying him a monthly fee, and this was something that all IFA's were now having to do.

There are two things here. 1) initial advice and 2) ongoing servicing. The two things need to be separated. Ongoing servicing will be reviews, rebalancing, visits, communications etc (without incurring any further charges than the agreed servicing charge with a few exceptions).

If you are getting work done then that is what you are paying for. If you are not getting work done or you dont want the work done then you dont need to pay it.

andy237432

I've just come into some cash. It's not loads but it's enough to pay off quite a lot of my debt. my debt is currently all paid through arrangements via consumer credit counselling foundation.

Am i better off paying my debt or keeping the money to put towards a mortgage deposit?? I'm thinking if i pay my debt then my credit rating should improve and I'll have more available salary when calculating what i could borrow in future?

Stumped on this so any advice happily received!