Selecting a good financial pension advisors

RogerPensionGuy

tacpot12 said:

The best way to select an IFA is by word of mouth; a personal recommendation from someone who has used the IFA for some time and been happy with the results. 

Although word of mouth is fine, I know lots of people who went the word of mouth because it felt nice, friendly, reassuring and warm.

Unfortunately when I sat down and went over the numbers and especially the charges looking over a few years, the fund/funds performance was generally below cheap DIY SIPPs.

Noticed lots of selling and buying various units generated by the IFAs.

Then biggest item generally was charges circa 1.5/1.8% on average and only 2 or 2.2% being actually taken by the person. 

So it appeared person gets 55% from off takes and the fees total were 45% generally. Obviously that split looked better when person was taking chunk out.

bjorn_toby_wilde

Word of mouth is good, but depends on the "mouth". I'm sure plenty of SJP customers were recommended by a friend or family member.

You can get a free first consultation from most independent advisers.  Try a few, listen to what they have to say and importantly check the charges.  There are plenty of threads on here which will give you an idea of what the ballpark charges should be.

Pat38493

One other thing I've heard is to make sure the independent financial adviser is also a chartered financial planner or equivalent and will create a long term cash flow plan based on your requirements.

dunstonh

Pat38493 said:

One other thing I've heard is to make sure the independent financial adviser is also a chartered financial planner or equivalent and will create a long term cash flow plan based on your requirements.

There is no requirement for chartered for around 98% of people.   Modelling is expecting on all drawdown cases and has nothing to do with the qualifications of the adviser.