Any retirement planners around?

[cleas]

I'm reaching out to the big MN world to see if there's anyone who can help with retirement planning for my DF (father that is). He is of retirement age but self employed and with little current hope of retiring soon but desperately needs to see some light at the end of tunnel!
Planning this sort of thing seems terribly complicated - are there any lovely people out there who are handy with this sort of thing or who could point us in the right direction?

He probably needs a good independent financial advisor. Ask around locally for a recommendation perhaps? If he's already of retirement age, the amount of planning he can do is going to be limited. Most people start thinking about retirement much earlier in their careers, setting up pensions or other investments. What your DF is looking at is probably management of existing savings, investments, property and other assets so that he gets a reasonable income going forward. If he's still able to work he can factor that in plus any state pension available to him.

If he's reaching retirement age now, he has what he has managed to save for his retirement and any state welfare benefits to live on in his old age. He may have assets, like a business or a house, but I'd imagine he'll want to keep the house, and contrary to all those pretty adverts on TV, I'd never suggest anyone sell their house to an equity release company, no mater how much commission the financial adviser is paid to tell you it's a good deal.

So he'll have his private pension and his govt pension to live on, and if he only has a govt pension to live on, it's not the end of the world, just a bit of a culture shock. But for many, realising their parents didn't have private pension provision is often the wake up call they need to get their own house in order for their old age.

find a local IFA : ask around your friends who they trust

• mine is an old school gate friend who actually understands DHs and my businesses ; which makes a huge difference to the standard of advice we get

Where do you live? I know people (that I would recommend), but you need to meet an IFA (independent and certainly not a child working in a bank!) something like this needs detailed advice and planning. I'm afraid that doing something like this on a forum is impossible. Most IFA's will offer a free first meeting. Find one that will actually use this meeting to give a bit of guidance, not just to gather facts.