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St. James's Place - can I do better?

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  • Are we alone in finding  the SJP on-line ". . . wealth summary . . " worse than useless?  They insist on using 31. December of the previous year value as the "Stichtag" (reference date) rather than one's initial investment.  Only after several "clicks" can one eventualy determine the initial conrtibution to a particular scheme.  Correspondence to SJP about this just receives a selection of pre-texted standard paragraphs.  Not happy.
  • jae123
    jae123 Posts: 23 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    I’ve just had a meeting with a SJP adviser and have been told there total ongoing charges are on average about 2%, which consists of admin, fund management and advice.

    Isn’t that about the same as a IFA when you add up advisers advice, fund fees and admin costs of a platform.
  • kuratowski
    kuratowski Posts: 1,415 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    As I understand it, it partly depends on the size of the portfolio, i.e. the IFA charges and platform charges may be tiered, so for bigger portfolios you get smaller charges in percentage terms.

    All in, my total charges currently works at around 1.53%.  I say 'around' because it's not a fixed %, the platform charge has reached its cap, so that's the sum of all charges expressed as a percentage of the current value.
  • lpgm
    lpgm Posts: 359 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 30 April 2021 at 10:05AM
    jae123 said:
    I’ve just had a meeting with a SJP adviser and have been told there total ongoing charges are on average about 2%, which consists of admin, fund management and advice.

    Isn’t that about the same as a IFA when you add up advisers advice, fund fees and admin costs of a platform.
    Percentage-wise, you could get a lower one from an IFA. But more importantly, you could also find fixed-fee advice, if it made sense for you. And SJP can't offer you many passively-managed investments at the moment, if you wanted some. 
  • dunstonh
    dunstonh Posts: 119,697 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Isn’t that about the same as a IFA when you add up advisers advice, fund fees and admin costs of a platform.

    It can be if the IFA is woefully expensive.   However, just to give an example, a transactional case I have just completed this morning has a total annual charge of 0.32% and an ongoing servicing case I am about to start has a bottom line of 0.97% (platform 0.16%, portfolio, 0.31% and adviser 0.50%).

    If you go looking at the wealth managers (whether IFA or FA) then you will be looking at circa 2%.   It doesn't need to be like that.

    I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.
  • Voyager2002
    Voyager2002 Posts: 16,283 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    jae123 said:
    I’ve just had a meeting with a SJP adviser and have been told there total ongoing charges are on average about 2%, which consists of admin, fund management and advice.

    Isn’t that about the same as a IFA when you add up advisers advice, fund fees and admin costs of a platform.

    That figure does not allow for the initial fee when you make the investment, nor for the fees if you wish to withdraw your investment within the first six years. Obviously someone who makes an investment and then leaves it with SJP for the next twenty years will get better value than someone whose plans change within a few years.

    SJP does provide a high level of personal service, such as visiting clients in their homes, and for some people this service is worth the fees.
  • DrSyn
    DrSyn Posts: 897 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    Have you drawn up a short list of say 3 IFS's be interviewed?  Or is this the only one your interested in?
  • jae123
    jae123 Posts: 23 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    Am going to see a couple of ifas but the ongoing charges with SJP include fund and platform charges, where ifas just seem to quote charges for advice alone.
  • DrSyn
    DrSyn Posts: 897 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts
    Then when you see the other IFA's you can ask them about these charges as well and hear what they say.
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