Financial review cost?

Takedap

Can anyone tell me a ballpark figure for an IFA to perform a financial review of my current situation?



I am already drawing a Final Salary pension so this does not need looking at (which I believe is the source of some of the eye-watering amounts I have seen quoted)


I also have a SIPP valued at about 90k, an S&S ISA with about the same amount but held by a different company & various cash type accounts/holdings.


The FS pension covers all my day to day living expenses with a bit left over.



I now want to be able to start to access some of this extra money & live a bit before old age hits but I also want to avoid any mistakes and/or pitfalls.


I think this will involve advice on whether or not I've got things in the right places, reducing tax liabilities etc. rather than taking control of anything.
Thank You.

HappyHarry

Takedap wrote: »

Can anyone tell me a ballpark figure for an IFA to perform a financial review of my current situation?



I am already drawing a Final Salary pension so this does not need looking at (which I believe is the source of some of the eye-watering amounts I have seen quoted)


I also have a SIPP valued at about 90k, an S&S ISA with about the same amount but held by a different company & various cash type accounts/holdings.


The FS pension covers all my day to day living expenses with a bit left over.



I now want to be able to start to access some of this extra money & live a bit before old age hits but I also want to avoid any mistakes and/or pitfalls.


I think this will involve advice on whether or not I've got things in the right places, reducing tax liabilities etc. rather than taking control of anything.
Thank You.

The best people to ask would be some local IFAs.

See here: https://www.thepfs.org/yourmoney/find-an-adviser/

Check they are independent.

Takedap

HappyHarry wrote: »

The best people to ask would be some local IFAs.

See here: https://www.thepfs.org/yourmoney/find-an-adviser/

Check they are independent.

Thanks for this. However I was hoping that someone may be able to give me an rough idea beforehand. Even if it's just whether I would expect to be looking at a bill of hundreds or of thousands :eek:


I've seen some frightening sums discussed on here but they normally seem to relate to a percentage of a Defined Benefit transfer. My work should hopefully be a lot simpler.

dunstonh

Could be hundreds. Could be thousands. It really depends on what sort of advice you are after and what service you are buying from them. It may be that you are just after guidance rather than advice (which costs less). Whereas regulated advice is much more formal and requires a lot more work.

mgdavid

Takedap wrote: »

Can anyone tell me a ballpark figure for an IFA to perform a financial review of my current situation?

I am already drawing a Final Salary pension so this does not need looking at (which I believe is the source of some of the eye-watering amounts I have seen quoted)

I also have a SIPP valued at about 90k, an S&S ISA with about the same amount but held by a different company & various cash type accounts/holdings.

The FS pension covers all my day to day living expenses with a bit left over.

I now want to be able to start to access some of this extra money & live a bit before old age hits but I also want to avoid any mistakes and/or pitfalls.

I think this will involve advice on whether or not I've got things in the right places, reducing tax liabilities etc. rather than taking control of anything.
Thank You.

Ref the highlights above - apart from the SIPP I can't really see what value an IFA can add here. Sounds more like you need an understanding of tyour personal tax situation, and the sums involved wouldn't seem to warrant hiring a tax accountant / specialist.
Presuming your DB pension uses all your personal allowance, any other withdrawals up to the HRT threshold will be taxable at 20%.
You can certainly get plenty of guidance on here, but it would help if you give all relevant facts, your age, State pension forecast, any debts or mortgages, how much per annum you want in order to 'live a little' etc etc.

AnotherJoe

Why do you think you need an IFA ?

What specifically do you think you cannot work out yourself?

Albermarle

It may be that you are just after guidance rather than advice (which costs less).

I was not aware that an IFA could just give general guidance /pointers in the right direction, as a cheaper option than giving regulated advice. Would all IFA's be normally happy to offer this option ? I am guessing that many will prefer to go down the higher cost regulated route ?
Also presume you would not to have give so much financial detail to the IFA, and have to sign something that you understand that the guidance is just that and not regulated advice ?

tacpot12

Your situation seems relatively straightforward. The only pitfalls I can see are:

1 - taking so much out of your SIPP that you have to pay higher rate tax in certain tax years - easily avoided by taking out cash upto the higher rate tax limit each year and reinvesting it in the S&S ISA if you don't need the money that year, or holding it as cash if you want to spend it within the next two years.

2 - taking so much out of your SIPP that you can't pay for a nice care home in later life - this is a one-off decision about whether you want to use leave some money in the SIPP for a time when a care home is necessary, and only you can make this decsion.

3 - not taking your profit from your S&S ISA at the right time. This isn't something an IFA will be able to help with. You need to look at when you want your money to be available to spend, and cash in your investments while they have enough value to make your plans happen.

An IFA would be able to advise whether you have your money in the right investments, but this would be regulated advice and would need an investigation into your future plans and attitude to risk.

dunstonh

Would all IFA's be normally happy to offer this option ?

No. It really depends on what you are after and the business model of the IFA firm.

I am guessing that many will prefer to go down the higher cost regulated route ?

Many would not be interested if you are not using them for product/investment placement.

Takedap

mgdavid wrote: »

Ref the highlights above - apart from the SIPP I can't really see what value an IFA can add here. Sounds more like you need an understanding of tyour personal tax situation, and the sums involved wouldn't seem to warrant hiring a tax accountant / specialist.
Presuming your DB pension uses all your personal allowance, any other withdrawals up to the HRT threshold will be taxable at 20%.
You can certainly get plenty of guidance on here, but it would help if you give all relevant facts, your age, State pension forecast, any debts or mortgages, how much per annum you want in order to 'live a little' etc etc.

Thanks for the reply. I think that you're right about me needing to know more about my tax situation. However, I thought that was one of the things that IFAs dealt with.


My circumstances are that I took redundancy/early retirement a couple of years ago. I am now almost 60 & due to being contracted out, need another 8 years of NI contributions to be entitled to the full SP.


My DB pension is approx £27k pa but this includes a "levelling option" whereby I am being paid a higher amount now but this will reduce by about £5-6K when I reach SP age.



I am married & my wife is already claiming her SP (she is several years older) We add £2880 (£3600) to her SIPP each year but she has not yet started drawing it. She is not on the maximum SP but it is too late to do anything about that now. However, this means that she still has quite a lot of her personal tax allowance left so it can be drawn at a reasonable rate without any tax being owed.


We have no debts or mortgage.


With regards to how much "extra" we need/want, I suppose that's the difficult one to answer. But if it helps to reduce or avoid extra tax, I don't know if it would be better to start drawing from the SIPP at an amount that would just keep me under he HR bracket, even if it meant reinvesting in an ISA.



My thinking is that I would still get the first 25% tax free but then by moving the rest from the SIPP into an ISA, any future growth would be tax free.



There is also a buffer of cash type savings & investments which would cover a couple of years expenses if necessary ( I suppose this means a market crash)