Fees

How we charge you for our services

On receiving an enquiry we invite a prospective client to come to our offices for a preliminary meeting, or we can visit you in your home /office if preferred.

The purpose of the meeting is firstly to establish whether we are able to assist you with your needs and objectives and secondly to discuss how we would be paid for our services should you wish us to proceed.

Irrespective of the level of service or the nature of financial need you have the option to pay for our services by way of a fee, or we are paid out of the cost of any financial product you buy (commission). The commission is paid to an IFA firm by a provider for the successful placing of any business. The commission is included within the provider’s normal product charges, so there is nothing you need to pay us in addition. The amount of commission is based on a percentage of the premiums payable or sums involved.

We will always tell you about any commission we earn and it will be taken into account in working out our fee, in which case the method of calculation will be agreed with you before we carry out any chargeable work. However, we reserve the right to retain small amounts of trail commission or equivalent up to a maximum amount of £75 per annum.

Commission receipts may be used to offset any fees. Where commissions are not retained by us they will be either rebated into the client’s plan or returned to the client.

If you elect to pay by fees then these will usually be based on time spent and evaluated at a rate per hour calculated to recover our costs. Fees attract an additional VAT charge where commissions, under current legislation, do not. We will provide you with further details about the cost of our services separately and we will tell you if you have to pay VAT.

If we arrange for you a contract from which we receive initial commission and subsequently you cease to pay premiums which results in us refunding the commission which has been paid to us, we reserve the right to recover from you an amount equal to the amount we have had to refund without the need for a separate fee agreement. The amount recoverable and the timeframe over which it is recoverable are dependent on the product chosen. Further details of the amount and timeframe will be notified to you prior to the conclusion of the contract in the Suitability Report or Statement of Demands and Needs Letter we will send you.