Comments for Informed Choice Chartered Financial Planners in Surrey

Comment on Retirement is bad for your health by Miles Stapleton

Miles Stapleton — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:01:00 +0000

I think that the key is to continue doing work that you enjoy. Few people are sorry to be rid of a long commute or work that has you out of bed at three in the morning, but otherwise ‘Use it or Lose it’ applies. If you want to keep your marbles you need to use them. It can also be financially advantageous in many ways, not least offering the possibility to defer taking an annuity (subject to taking appropriate advice!) until such time as either rates are better or you are eligible for an enhanced annuity.

Comment on More poor service from dinosaur Aviva by IFA in Purley

IFA in Purley — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:05:00 +0000

As a fellow IFA I concur with all of the above. Truth is they are a merger of many different Life Assurance Companies including General Accident, Commercial Union, Norwich Union and Provident Mutual.

It seems they merged the names but not their IT systems or T&Cs. Almost impossible to deal with, yet try we must.

Comment on Fewer financial advisers is good news by Martin Bamford

Martin Bamford — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 10:30:00 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Martin. We agree that ‘adviser’ is often misleading as a title when ‘salesman’ or possibly ‘sales adviser’ would have been more appropriate. We have seen a worrying trend in the past twelve months towards the banks giving their sales advisers titles such as ‘Financial Planning Manager’, which suggests a Financial Planning service is being offered when in reality they are simply identifying gaps and suggesting products to fill those gaps. There is of course nothing wrong with selling financial products to solve identified problems, but where this is happening the customer should be under no illusion they are receiving ‘advice’.

Comment on Fewer financial advisers is good news by Martin Rai

Martin Rai — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:25:00 +0000

I think the title “Adviser” has caused a lot of misunderstanding. It gives the impression that the person holding that title is some sort of expert and is capable of advising customers on all your possible options whereas in fact in a lot of cases (banks) they were just ordinary clerks assigned to the job of funnelling customers towards the banks already agreed upon investments. I think the expression “Adviser” should be dropped because of these negative associations although at the moment I can’t think of a new name….I’m working on it

Comment on How to choose a good value divorce lawyer by martinbamford

martinbamford — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:38:00 +0000

There’s a good blog from TWM Solicitors on this subject at http://www.twmsolicitors.com/news-and-blogs/twm-solicitors-comment-on-legal-ombudsmans-report-and-criticism-of-family-lawyers-in-divorce-cases/

Comment on Will you run out of money in retirement? by edtheeditor

edtheeditor — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:10:00 +0000

What nobody seems to be aware of, and addressing, are two big problems:

1) Pension companies have control all the money in ‘your’ pension fund once you have paid into it, even once you have retired. At present can levy quite high annual charges, which can significantly reduce the overall value over a fund, over a number of years, especially for those with smaller lump sums invested. As long as this situation persists, many self-employed people, or people on lower rates of tax, will be reluctant to take out a private pension.

2) By increasing the level at which tax is payable for low earners, the government are giving people an initial tax break, but what perhaps is less clear is that if someone on a low income has a year of non-taxable earnings, it may count as one year less towards their state retirement pension, thereby saving the government money in the long term. So it’s in the government’s interest, in the long term, to raise the lower level at which income tax is payable! You are at risk if your earnings fall so low that your national insurance contributions are refunded. It is therefore very important for self-employed women who have children, for example, to claim ‘domestic responsibility protection’ while their children are young, to protect themselves from this eventuality.

I strongly feel that these two issues need to be tackled by the government urgently. Otherwise, the consumer is 1) being potentially misled about the ‘value’ of taking out a personal pension and 2) being sold a tax ’reform’ by the government that could lead to a long-term income nightmare!

Comment on Making will writing a reserved legal activity by martinbamford

martinbamford — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:56:00 +0000

Hi Michael

Thanks for your comment. We haven’t removed or moderated any comments on this blog. We agree that not all will writers are bad and not all solicitors are good.

Comment on Making will writing a reserved legal activity by Michael

Michael — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:09:00 +0000

I am not sure why there is a discuss thread here if you remove perfectly valid comments that will writers are not all bad and solicitors are not all good?

Comment on Making will writing a reserved legal activity by Michael

Michael — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:15:00 +0000

I have read quite a bit on this subject and it seems that solicitors are equally responsible for badly written wills. More so, many firms are responsible for the theft of client money as well. This is therefore an issue to do with individual greed – whether they are will writers or not. Being a solicitor does not make them angels. It is also important to recognise that will writers exist because of the high cost of using a solicitor, and the fact that will writers are effcetive at what they do. I trust that regulation will create a level playing field and scare stories dry up – because the loser is the public who see solicitors as unaffordable and will writers as criminals, when neither is really true. There are professional bodies for will writers, so seek these out and choose a member this way if you want a professional service, or equally choose a solicitor. It should be a choice, not a horror story to get a will.

Comment on SIPPs and high risk investments by Robert Gill

Robert Gill — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 11:53:00 +0000

Sipps are also allowing investors to access their pension pots before the age of 55. I think that this year will see the surfacing of another miss-selling scandal, as although as you rightly say Nick, this practice has been going on for some time, it is only in the last few months that the chatter from the army of unregulated financial services sales people, who now work in the debt management, IVA secured loan and claims management space, are now waking up to Sipp pensions and saying that they are, ‘the next big thing’.

These people have deep pockets, think that fines are trophies to brag about to their mates and after the PPI claim debacle, unfortunately for the IFA, have VERY deep pockets from the 30% fees they have creamed off the financially illiterate. And guess who are the ideal customer is for a sales pitch to transfer their pensions from decent schemes into Indonesian Teak investments or release ’70% of your pension funds tax free’ schemes. Yes! The same people who couldn’t handle something as simple as a PPI claim. And wait it get’s better, guess what the fees are for their work, you guessed it, 30%!