Paul Lewis: find good financial advice

colsten

Many will find this helpful. some may find it controversial: http://paullewismoney.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/find-good-financial-advice.html

I think the first part is very good, but am not so sure about the "free financial advice" as there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as "free financial advice" as proper advice needs to be paid for. But leaving that aside, I would probably ignore Which? as I have generally a very low opinion of Which?, and it is rather questionable what the quality and independence they could provide with what is essentially a free service. Anyone tried them? I might do a trial subscription and give them a go for a laugh.

EdGasket

The best advice is to read up and learn; then make your own decisions. Only you will know what is best for you and only you will take the most time and care over that choice.

dunstonh

Filter 2 is daft. Most people do not need the qualifications of a chartered financial planner and there is no point paying extra for that.

His reasoning is flawed as well. It is important to avoid generalisations but I have seen multiple occurrences of chartered planners using more complicated and non-mainstream investment options which have gone bad. In the case of Arch Cru, for example, most of those that recommended it were chartered. Some chartered advisers (again, avoiding generalisation) feel a need to make their advice more complicated to try and make them seem better. So, telling people to use chartered for the reasons given is flawed. You dont get a brain surgeon to apply a plaster to a cut knee.

Filter 3 is daft. If you pay the fee directly or via the provider then the same amount is paid. It makes no difference (apart from pension where its better to pay from product). Modern products take the fee prior to investment. He doesnt appear to have updated for modern products. Indeed, if you get an adviser that has broken their charge into segments for parts of the service, then some of that is VATable rather than a single fee which would avoid VAT. CGT can be easier to work out when paid via the product as well.

Like Colsten, I am not impressed with Which? They used to tell people to buy Standard Life endowments. Those that followed their advice lost the ability to complain. Also, you cannot be a consumer champion and a retailer of services which you then go on to rate others on and remain credible.

Archi_Bald

Paul Lewis appears to say today that his pension money is all in cash. Very hard to believe, but if it is indeed true, I would just discard any and all of his recommendations regarding investments. Sorry Mr. Lewis, 100% cash is not a balanced portfolio. A 100% cash pension fund should come with a massive health warning.



His link is to an HL news item: http://www.hl.co.uk/news/2015/6/30/greek-crisis-markets-begin-to-tumble-as-investors-flee

The image is a screenshot from Paul Lewis' Twitter account: https://twitter.com/paullewismoney