investment advice

Wildsound

A 3% initial fee is rather high although not unusual. You tend to see sliding scales where the more you have, the less they charge as a % (e.g. first £250k at 3%, £250k-£500k 2%, £500k+ 1%).

They will provide you with a recommendation letter and they have to disclose charges in a transparent way (their charges, the platform/provider charges and the fund charges).

On platform charges, I would expect anywhere between 0.2%-0.6% as reasonable, anything above and I would perhaps question their independence a little although unlikely.

I don't think you will get much consensus on fund charges. Some IFAs go for cheap risk managed funds (e.g. L&G multi-index funds), others attempt to build a portfolio of managed funds (usually at more cost). On this forum, the cheaper the better as most argue that fund managers don't outperform tracker funds consistently enough and over the long term.

Alexland

If they are charging a 3% setup fee then I expect the 0.7% is their fee before the costs of the platform or fund manager. They are either generally expensive, expecting people to negotiate down or believe you are a customer that might pay that much.

Brown_Bear

Sorry - I didn't realise OP was only 38.
I'd assumed he was older - in his 60s etc.

My advice would be:

Try and decide how much of the money you want to give to your kids and how much you want to keep for yourself.

For the kids, I would put in a cheap (<0.1% OCF) 100% equity tracker accumulation fund - assuming they won't be needing it for 10-20 yrs etc. Then each year drip feed into JISA shelter.

For yourself - obviously depends on your circumstances (work, mortgage etc). But I'd probably go for a 50/50 cheap bonds / equity tracker fund. (either one multi-asset - or one equity and one corporate bond fund) to start with. Then take time to read around and maybe adjust allocation if circumstances change.

I personally wouldn't rush into using an IFA. They may be able to add something that justifies those fees, but maybe not.

dunstonh

For the kids, I would put in a cheap (<0.1% OCF) 100% equity tracker accumulation fund - assuming they won't be needing it for 10-20 yrs etc. Then each year drip feed into JISA shelter.

For yourself - obviously depends on your circumstances (work, mortgage etc). But I'd probably go for a 50/50 cheap bonds / equity tracker fund. (either one multi-asset - or one equity and one corporate bond fund) to start with. Then take time to read around and maybe adjust allocation if circumstances change.

I personally wouldn't rush into using an IFA. They may be able to add something that justifies those fees, but maybe not.

Not being funny but you have made recommendations without knowing a thing about the person. What is their risk profile, knowledge and understanding, capacity for loss, behaviour likely to be during negative events? You know none of that.

Plus, the choice of investments leaves a lot to be desired.

Brown_Bear

dunstonh wrote: »

Not being funny but you have made recommendations without knowing a thing about the person. What is their risk profile, knowledge and understanding, capacity for loss, behaviour likely to be during negative events? You know none of that.

Plus, the choice of investments leaves a lot to be desired.

Well obviously I can't say exactly would suit the OP best.

This is just a rough suggestion about what I would do. A starting point for research.
Like I said - OP should do more research before agreeing to any large fees.

celt80

Thank you, I won't be jumping straight in until I'm positive I'm doing the right thing. I have no mortgage and am working full time.