Towry Law

johnmaynardkeynes

smallfry27 wrote: »

Agreed, what I was trying to convey is that I felt I got better advice from my EJ ‘person’ than some of the IFAs I dealt with previously. Perhaps I chose badly, perhaps I was just too small an investor for them to bother with.

But back to Towry Law. As they hold their investment accounts in Dublin, would they be covered by the FSCS protection ?

It says on their website that they are

johnmaynardkeynes

Just as an aside and to bring this thread back from the dead (!) I felt compelled to put in my two penneth here, the post by macroeconomics and defence of TL from a client are to a degree accurate but.......

Macro - most of the clients posting on here are dealing with EJ advisers, how many of them are even diploma level neve mind chartered? How many TL advisers are chartered? I have an understanding that many of the figures you have provided are significantly inflated.

Addtionally, can you confirm that the only objective/target that ex EJ advisers have is transferring funds into the infamous ILM? For neutral posters, the ILM is not the best investment of its kind and again from my information, the ONLY investment advice TL who are supposedly independant advisers offer is their own products, as someone pointed out before - the evidence here is that you can offer any solution you like so long as its your own profitable product, how is this treating customers fairly?

Smallfry - How was the advice explained to you from your existing adviser? Six months ago their advice was different to now, the simple fact is that now your adviser is on a salary, has one target to hit (Funds transferred into ILM from EJ) and taht is their only focus, not whats best for you - therefore I would be wary as to the ongoing service your receive and the longjevity of your advisers career at Towry.

smallfry27

My original post was not intended as a defence of TL - I haven't got enough experience of them yet to decide. I am concerned by the negative comments about TL on this thread. But I've also had bad experience with supposedly Independant FAs. Changing company is an expensive and time-consuming process (which I went through only a year ago). And many companies just aren't interested in small investors.

dunstonh

I am concerned by the negative comments about TL on this thread.

Some of it will be driven by anger (TL buying EJ and forcing changes for example). Others will be driven by TLs marketing that promotes their fee basis and how bad commission is yet their fees are higher than commission.

But I've also had bad experience with supposedly Independant FAs.

30,000 IFAs out there. And that doesnt include the half that seei tied FAs who actually think they are seeing an IFA. With that number of people you cant expect all to be good as it is any profession. However, with under 2% of complaints at the FOS despite handling the majority of transactions, things are not that bad nowadays.

Changing company is an expensive and time-consuming process (which I went through only a year ago).

Not necessarily expensive. Many will take on the investments with a view to servicing and being paid that way. However, it depends on the size of the investments.....

And many companies just aren't interested in small investors.

Depends on what you mean by small. However, servicing advisers tend to prefer larger portfolios. Transactional advisers dont mind but they are not as cost effective.

property.advert

terrytravel wrote: »

As part of my process to look for an alternative adviser I have recently had a meeting with Rathbone Brothers - Most impressed !
The investment manager took 2 hours to thoroughly explain the companies background, the process of assessing our risk tolerance, how a bespoke portfolio would be set up for us, the in house compliance checks etc.,
The manager was also qualified to Chartered status. Very impressive session to a couple who are only looking at investing £200K.
The only charges are 1% per annum, with no transfer-in charges.
To date Rathbone Brothers are our favoured organisation.

Interested to hear of any other experiences.

But 2 hours for 1% of 200k is £1000 per hour !

Then what about any changes to your current investments ? what about commissions from those ? Just what do you get for your £2000 ?

smallfry27

'Only 200k to invest' !!! No wonder he was nice to you. In my whole working life I've only managed to save £35k, and now I'm retired there won't be any more new money going in. I can't even get an appointment with a lot of IFAs. Yet I would like to manage what I have to get best return.

dunstonh

smallfry27 wrote: »

'Only 200k to invest' !!! No wonder he was nice to you. In my whole working life I've only managed to save £35k, and now I'm retired there won't be any more new money going in. I can't even get an appointment with a lot of IFAs. Yet I would like to manage what I have to get best return.

200k is more in line with what an IFA will typically look to actively manage. 35k is just too small to provide ongoing servicing cost efficiently. You may well find a number of transaction advisers will still provide advice or where there is an existing family member with the IFA. Or avoid the city IFAs as those in a more rural location often will go with smaller amounts than a city located IFA would.

Silversavers

IF YOU WERE EXPECTING PAYMENTS FROM TL THIS MONTH, THINK AGAIN!

From 1st May, TL have stopped daily pay-aways of cash in our account (we knew that would happen) but have now also stopped monthly pay-aways as well.

We currently have £160 cash from monthly dividend payments made into TL on 30 April by a number of funds. This cash WILL NOT be paid to us unless we apply in writing using a form that they have to send us in the post.

We're considering what action to take here. But any ex-EJ's that have not joined the TL club and were expecting their usual dividend payments, don't hold your breath.

Regards

PS, we've already initiated transfers out, but the above is not because of that reason.

binliner

I asked to transfer out of Jones/Towry law in January-stillwaiting for this to complete-no help from local office but quick reply from head office-but still waiting

johnmaynardkeynes

binliner wrote: »

I asked to transfer out of Jones/Towry law in January-stillwaiting for this to complete-no help from local office but quick reply from head office-but still waiting

Binliner, reading other sources of info on the web will give you an indication that all is not well at Towry, they have allegedly got a huge backlog of transfers to complete and don't seem to be making a great deal of progress.

I would be tempted to draft a formal complaint to them with a view to alerting the FSA if they do not resolve your query very quickly, not sure if you have an ISA involved but their terms and conditions say 30 day transfer time, clearly you are way above this now.

Do you know if your transfer is to be done as cash or as stock?