Often people come to us because we have been recommended to them by someone they know and trust who is already a client of ours or by a trusted professional such as their accountant or lawyer. We love the fact that there are people out there who trust us enough to recommend us to others but we also recognise that each new client needs to find their own reasons for using us. What we stand for and what our core values are need to align with yours for the relationship to be a success.
When Ed first moved from being a trainer to being a planner in 1999, it was specifically to work as an independent, tied to no provider of products and services and able to make recommendations in the best interest of each individual client.
Clients have a choice of the way in which they pay fees for the planning that they need and we charge for where we can truly add value. So unlike the majority of advisers we charge a fixed fee for the initial planning work, time spent on an hourly rate basis to implement the recommendations and then a percentage fee based on investment value for the ongoing service we provide, with a lower and upper limit.
However, we also offer an hourly rate fee option for each part of the process, where you pay for what time is spent on your planning regardless of what the value of your investments or pensions may be. So if you wanted to work entirely on an hourly rate, time spent basis you can do and many of our clients choose to do so.
Ed first started providing fee based independent financial planning in 1999 and has never changed course. He is one of the most highly qualified financial planners in the UK with an excellent understanding of the wider aspects of planning that comes from spending over 13 years running the financial planning division of a top 100 accountancy practice.
There are various qualifications held out to be the “gold standard” of financial planning qualifications, partly because there is no one sole professional body. Ed is proud to hold Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments and Fellowship of the Personal Finance Society, as well as the Chartered Financial Planner, Chartered Wealth Manager and Certified Financial PlannerTM designations.