Ongoing IFA Charge & Fees

dmelife

Oh bore off. I don’t know what you do for a living but I bet you are crap at it and charge far too much.

Prism

fred246 wrote: »

No one will actually say how many hours it takes to 'service' a pension. For a £400k pension you are charging £2k. How long does it take? The investments will be less than one side of A4. Are IFAs just very slow at reading and arithmetic or do they charge too much?

How much of that 2k do you think goes into the IFA's pocket? Probably not as much as you think

[Deleted User]

Prism wrote: »

How much of that 2k do you think goes into the IFA's pocket? Probably not as much as you think

But that’s neither here nor there for the client. The point is that he is paying thousands every year for something that should only take a minute if the investment was designed well in the first place.

Prism

Deleted_User wrote: »

But that’s neither here nor there for the client. The point is that he is paying thousands every year for something that should only take a minute if the investment was designed well in the first place.

Maybe, but many people rightly or wrongly have no interest in planning their own finances (much of my family included) and so since a 0.5% rate seems to be the going rate then thats surely a fair price.

beamyup

For all those IFA's that say they are not sales, in fact if you think about it logically you are because you are selling your services.

I believe IFAs have a conflict of interest between:

1) selling your services (which may severely deplete the client's pension fund and enhance your own income over many years)

2) telling the client that they should learn (or maybe they know enough already but just lack confidence) about pensions and manage it themselves

You have to set a balance between the 2 options, however that is your conflict of interest.

[Deleted User]

Prism wrote: »

Maybe, but many people rightly or wrongly have no interest in planning their own finances (much of my family included) and so since a 0.5% rate seems to be the going rate then thats surely a fair price.

That’s true but planning is a one off exercise. Make it a one off plan, agree a one off fee, pay the adviser, invest and forget.

Having said this, one is going to live with the consequences of this planning for many decades. Not taking at least some responsibility for you future and just parcelling it out to a stranger who doesn’t know you, has interests which are misaligned with yours and doesn’t really care seems weird. Why not read up, make a plan and then pay the adviser to review - if you lack confidence?

[Deleted User]

wjr4 wrote: »

IFAs do not have their own platform.

Sorry I was unclear in my answer, my IFA has access to a low cost platform (Elevate)

Albermarle

Not taking at least some responsibility for you future and just parcelling it out to a stranger who doesn’t know you, has interests which are misaligned with yours and doesn’t really care seems weird. Why not read up, make a plan and then pay the adviser to review - if you lack confidence?

To the contributors to this forum this make sense, but the vast majority of people with pensions/investments have only the faintest idea about financial matters. In this case some kind of professional advice would probably save them a lot of money by avoiding basic mistakes.
Such as withdrawing all your pension and paying a big tax bill , or being a HRT and not knowing that you can claim back the HR portion ( quite common apparently even amongst business people )

[Deleted User]

Albermarle wrote: »

To the contributors to this forum this make sense, but the vast majority of people with pensions/investments have only the faintest idea about financial matters. In this case some kind of professional advice would probably save them a lot of money by avoiding basic mistakes.
Such as withdrawing all your pension and paying a big tax bill , or being a HRT and not knowing that you can claim back the HR portion ( quite common apparently even amongst business people )

Moving from accumulation to a withdrawal mode could be a good time to consult an adviser. Devise the plan and have it vetted. One off payment to the adviser.

I have a business so I pay an experienced accountant who advises on the best approach to minimize the tax bill, including approaches that are more complex than contributing to the pension and claiming the tax. I still like to know enough to understand what’s going on and ask the right questions.

Just don’t see a scenario where it makes sense to pay ongoing fees to an IFA to “monitor” investments.

fred246

Still no reply from an IFA telling us how many hours it would take to carry out a £2k service on a pension.