This thread really made me laugh. IFAs really are the opposite of fair days work for fair days pay men. To have a little chat lasting a few minutes they want 0.5% of your pension. There have been loads of threads and they keep saying that's the 'going' rate. So someone with a £600000 pot is expected to pay £3000 for a little chat.

Perhaps you are missing the thrust of the responses in this thread.

IFA's don't want a 'little chat lasting a few minutes' with a pricetag of several thousand pounds.

They either want the opportunity to do actual work and take on actual liability - for real money - or not to have the chat at all.

Sorry to jump on the back of this but lots of responses are saying about if you had a small query there are enough people on here to point you in the right direction. I am after a small bit of advice just from people who have been there done that life experienced rather than detailed ifa advice. Do you have to post on a particular forum thread? Thanks in advance

Post a new thread.

There are a few "megathreads" on particular topics but if in doubt it is always better to post a new thread so your query doesn't get lost.

Best to start your own thread - and give it a short, meaningful title.

If its about Savings & Investments - use this section of the board. If its about tax - use the Cutting Tax section.

Some questions will span several sections - just pick one that's appropriate. We won't bite. Well, most of us won't

Doesn't seem to be beyond the wit of man (or IFA industry) to come up with a service which is guidance only which meets that criteria thought I would expect it to be more costly than £100.

I note that HL fund research/comments are guidance only not that I'm suggesting that IFA guidance would relate to specific funds.

A few of my questions have been answered in here to be honest, so thanks to all involved.

Pension and IHT was a concern and was answered.
Also gifting was a concern.

It also opened my eyes to my life and what I want out of it (Which is not much tbh).

Quite happy to squirrel it away or give it to my youngest to make his life easier. Before or beyond my death.

Whoever commented about my life and hobbies/work/charity. You are very right. I don't know what to do, and thoughts of a business/charity work to keep me busy I'm finding hard to get my head round or to fit in to what I can do....

No IFAs preferred it when they got trail commission. This meant that after a single meeting with a customer they could receive money every year with no more contact. Now they have to arrange a meeting and fiddle with a few things to justify their ludicrous fees. They'll only work if they can charge an enormous fee for their first meeting and then they won't work unless you agree to 'annual reviews' with silly fees. Just ditch the parasites and watch your investments fly. Best thing I ever did was take over my own investments.

The importance of punctuation!

Spot the difference between:

No IFAs preferred it when they got trail commission

and

No, IFAs preferred it when they got trail commission

Fred often eats, shoots and leaves.

How long is a piece of string? The client should get the advice they personally need. Not some predetermined "package".

And unlike Fred, you could have made punctuation errors and still been correct

Commas are too small to make a big fuss about. IFAs used to make massive amounts on commission. When they stopped commission they started charging hourly rates which were grossly in excess of what they should have been considering what an easy job it is. A few flowcharts would cover the entire knowledge of an IFA. If IFAs won't charge reasonable amounts bring on the robos.

Except its been found that flow charts have a failure rate (around 25%) and there is no way you can get full knowlege onto a flow chart.

Who are haemorrhaging money hand over fist and many of whom cost the same or more than a general practitioner IFA.

You're entitled to your view but obviously run the risk that slapdash text can be misunderstood, whereas those operating in professional environments have to communicate with care and precision. Not being able (or willing) to differentiate between diametrically-opposed statements such as, say, "no funds offer what I want" and "no, funds offer what I want", could be expensive!

Who is talking about a package. The client may not want advice for whatever reason (it surely is their choice), they just want some guidance (point in the right direction). This forum is full of guidance but not advice and much of that guidance is really useful.

No disrespect intended but I can't help thinking that some people just want to complicate a simpler matter.

Exactly - this is a discussion forum with contributors who's level of experience, knowledge and common sense range from "good" to "total idiot" (in my opinion ).

We are not providing advice as that is a regulated activity that normally has a fee associated with it and has ongoing liabilities if it turns out to be unsuitable advice for that person's individual circumstances.

All we are doing is spouting off via a keyboard rather than via mouth like we would if we all met in a pub.

What the "service" required here seems to be is a distillation of all the possible ideas that you might get on here, from one person over a coffee with a minimal fee paid.

75% success rate just using a flow-chart - I find that quite impressive and it's only going to improve over time.

IFAs are going to become an endangered species.

If the OP is still looking for an expensive chat he might be advised/ guided to do this asap.

Where I worked IFAs used to come and see the top earners every few months touting for business. They totally ignored all the people earning £30-£40K who needed financial advice as much as anyone. I used to think surely an IFA could see them and still make enough money. It's a bit like expecting a premier league football agent to deal with non league players. They just seem to want to do a few deals and make a load from each one. They certainly aren't going to get out of bed for £100.

I suppose the people earning £30k probably don't have anywhere near as much investible income as those earning £150k because more of their money is spent on necessities or cash savings. So they have rather less money that would be available to pay the IFA for his time and knowledge and liability, and even a discounted fee would be large in relation to the figures on which the advice would be given. So unfortunately they're not going to get the advice (at a price that's sensible from their perspective).

You had a job paying you and your colleagues a six figure salary, right? If another company had approached you saying they'd like you to come and work for them for £10k a year because they don't have a lot of revenue to pay you more, and you could probably live on it if you were careful. If you didn't have enough in the bank to give up your existing £100k a year gig to be charitable with the new company, you'd probably tell them to get stuffed - you're not going to give them a 90% discount from your going rate.

That's the same as the IFA who gets enough business income from the high earners to run his business profitably, and doesn't want to drop any of that work to pursue a small client who would need a discount. Similarly the football agent who can't give up a week to work a transfer deal with a non league club for minimal fee when that week would net him £millions from Ronaldo's people. Maybe he could do it in his spare time for free You do find IFAs on here from time to time, giving guidance for free.