Should I expect a financial adviser to keep my finances confidential?

Simby

Mistral001 wrote: »

If you are married, you each share half of the total income. So I would have thought that legally you cannot hide your income from your spouse.

That is not necessarily true ( although it’s seems the majority) you can decide to share a total income or keep incomes separate , it is every couples choice if they share finances completely/ partially or not at all.

In the extreme example rent is 500 each pay 250 , one pays for gas one for electric etc.. each put in 100 to a kitty for food or buy in turns .. many ways to do things.

I chose to have the house in my name we both live there but he does not know how much it cost or any details of it only and I would never have a joint account. He owns an investment property I have no idea if he has a mortgage, I do not know if he has a pension or how much savings it’s non of my business

Yes if we ever got divorced I would need to disclose if he made a claim but so would he but he would not we have our own finances we enter cleanly we leave cleanly .. there are no joint finances and we each pay our own way.

NoMore

Simby wrote: »

Yes if we ever got divorced I would need to disclose if he made a claim but so would he but he would not we have our own finances we enter cleanly we leave cleanly .. there are no joint finances and we each pay our own way.

In a divorce never assume what your ex partner will or will not do.

Simby

NoMore wrote: »

In a divorce never assume what your ex partner will or will not do.

People only make claims if it’s in their interest to do so, less likely if you don’t know if you would gain or lose but you are right you never know what someone might do.

Therefore a prenup ( although not legally binding) plus a renewal every few years, plus ensuring no joint assets and neither partner supports the other.

NoMore

Not to try and drag this off topic, but don't put too much faith in not having joint assets/accounts in protecting you in divorce.

In working out what is fair the courts say that marriage is a partnership – and so as a starting point the assets should be divided equally.
What has been built up during the marriage – the value of the home, the savings, the pensions and so on – should all be split equally between the two of you. These are the “matrimonial assets”. It doesn't matter whose name these assets were originally in.

Of course it's a case by case basis, and this is only the starting point.

Broken_Biscuits

SonOf wrote: »

We are lacking a fair bit of info. It could be a breach if the OP made it clear that their finances were not to be discussed with each other. It may not be a breach if the adviser didn't know.

My understanding is that there is no “it could be a breach if the OP made it clear...”. That would be a breach. Not could be a breach.

Also if the advisor didn’t know... that’s still a breach. It’s not enough to say you didn’t know the law so it was ok to be in breach due to lack of knowledge or the lack of correct processes and controls being in place.

notbrokeyet

Thanks for all your replies. The financial adviser was introduced to me by my husband but there was no joint discussion regarding our finances. Six months ago I needed to withdraw money from my ISA account, the adviser did not act on my instructions immediately, but did so after discussing it with my husband which really annoyed me. It was to fund a house purchase not to buy handbags or whatever.
Most of you seemed to be saying that I should have explicitly said I did not want my finances discussed with my husband at the start. Well I work in the health service where there is a presumption of confidentiality unless the patient says otherwise so to be honest I expected the same.
We have a good relationship but my husband can be controlling when it comes to money and I think it should be for me to decide not my financial adviser, I don’t think that’s unduly secretive.
I can’t believe I’m really that unusual.
It’s still not clear whether this is a breach of GDPR, can anyone enlighten me?

Freecall

notbrokeyet wrote: »

Six months ago I needed to withdraw money from my ISA account, the adviser did not act on my instructions immediately, but did so after discussing it with my husband

That's incredible.

The matter is definitely in complaint territory.

:eek:

AnotherJoe

notbrokeyet wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies. The financial adviser was introduced to me by my husband but there was no joint discussion regarding our finances. Six months ago I needed to withdraw money from my ISA account, the adviser did not act on my instructions immediately, but did so after discussing it with my husband which really annoyed me. It was to fund a house purchase not to buy handbags or whatever.
Most of you seemed to be saying that I should have explicitly said I did not want my finances discussed with my husband at the start. Well I work in the health service where there is a presumption of confidentiality unless the patient says otherwise so to be honest I expected the same.
We have a good relationship but my husband can be controlling when it comes to money and I think it should be for me to decide not my financial adviser, I don’t think that’s unduly secretive.
I can’t believe I’m really that unusual.
It’s still not clear whether this is a breach of GDPR, can anyone enlighten me?

In that case, seems like a clear breach. Make a complaint to them (with a heading to make it clear its a complaint that needs an answer) and if you feel so minded, to the relevant authorities though I'm not sure which one that would be.
However, irrespective the result if I was you I would be moving to another one given such a massive breach of trust.

DrSyn

I hope you have now told your adviser of your displeasure by now?

What does your adviser say about all this?

Perhaps you should give serious thought to moving to another adviser, telling them not to share any information with your husband without your express consent.

That may cause conflict with your husband of course. Only you will be able to judge that.

Malthusian

AnotherJoe wrote: »

In that case, seems like a clear breach. Make a complaint to them (with a heading to make it clear its a complaint that needs an answer) and if you feel so minded, to the relevant authorities though I'm not sure which one that would be.

Information Commissioner's Office, if the OP wants to go that far. No point going to anyone else until the adviser has issued a final response to the OP's formal complaint.

notbrokeyet wrote:

Six months ago I needed to withdraw money from my ISA account, the adviser did not act on my instructions immediately, but did so after discussing it with my husband which really annoyed me.

This is the deal-breaker for me. Unless you'd told him that you were withdrawing all the £200,000 in the ISA account to invest in London Capital & Finance, the only acceptable response to this instruction is "yes ma'am, three bags full ma'am". Even if you hadn't told him that you kept finances separate.

Most of you seemed to be saying that I should have explicitly said I did not want my finances discussed with my husband at the start. Well I work in the health service where there is a presumption of confidentiality unless the patient says otherwise so to be honest I expected the same.

In financial advice it is the other way round. The presumption is for full disclosure. Correct advice requires full disclosure of someone's financial position, and for a married couple that always includes the spouse's finances. If the other spouse does not wish to disclose them, or if they are both happy to disclose to the adviser but not to each other, this must be documented and caveated by the adviser up front in case it leads to sub-optimal advice being given.

(E.g. one spouse wants to invest £100,000 of their own money, the best course of action would be to use the other spouse's £20,000 ISA allowance, but they can't as that would involve disclosing their money to the other spouse, so they invest £80,000 unwrapped and pay extra tax. If the adviser has not documented that they want to keep their finances separate and explained that this may result in them paying extra tax, it is bad advice.)

A spouse's state of health is largely irrelevant to your own. In finance it's completely the opposite.

However, I am talking here about the fact-finding process. Responding to a withdrawal instruction from the wife by running off to the husband is not acceptable. What did your husband think?