Financial adviser- want to change!

[Blushah]

We have about £220k with a IFA who has basically taken the cash and plonked it all with Old Mutual (ISAs, S&S) which frankly is something I could have done myself without him taking a cut!

Now, I'd readily say we are a bit clueless about all of this but I'm increasingly concerned that his Pro-Brexit stand, refusing to countenance anything other than Golden Uplands and Unicorns is bothering me, we are not on the same page.

Also, we need pension advice (especially as we have overseas pensions as well!)- which he can't give.

I guess my question is- what happens if we effectively 'sack' him? Does all the cash (minus due fees) get returned to me or can it stay with Old Mutual?

You have a direct contract with Old Mutual for your investment; your adviser is merely the servicing agent and can act on your behalf to manage the account. If you change servicing agent (i.e. appoint a different adviser and transfer the servicing authority to them) the money still stays where it is until you instruct it to be moved elsewhere.

You could arrange such a transfer yourself if you wanted to but you would then lose the protection of any advice guarantee that comes with using the adviser (and which a portion of your fees will have gone towards paying for).

It sounds like you might be concerned that your appetite for risk is lower than the adviser might have discerned. He should have due regard for this when advising which underlying funds you should be invested in. As a platform to hold your ISA account, Old Mutual is as competitively priced as other providers; it might be that a fund switch would meet your needs rather than to transfer out completely.

Thanks. DH has found another adviser who we're seeing next week for a chat who also does pension advice (which our current adviser doesn't). we sort of can't afford a gung-ho approach to our cash as we have no time to recover from a crash in the value of our savings pot!

plonked it all with Old Mutual (ISAs, S&S) which frankly is something I could have done myself

It's very easy after the event to say you could have done it yourself but did you know all the various providers available, their charges, their performance, etc? Would you really have even discovered Old Mutual yourself and if so, would you have chosen them over the several alternatives?

And what about the split of investments between types and then the actual choice of the fund in each category. Again, easy with hindsight and having seen what a professional has actually done, but I honestly don't think you'd have come to the same solution without a lot of research, time, worry etc.

He won't have just "plonked" it there - periodically, he will be reviewing the performance of the funds invested in, compared with performance of alternatives, the markets generally, etc., and will be advising when it's time to change funds/products, also bearing in mind your age to retirement (usual practice to move out of riskier funds as you get closer to retirement) etc.

I'm an accountant with 35 years of experience so know lots about finance, tax, investments, etc., but I still pay an IFA to look after my investment portfolio because I know that he has the knowledge of all available options, firms, funds, products, etc., so it saves me the stress and time of having to try to keep up with the research etc myself. For what he charges, it's well worth it for me. In years gone by, I used to do it myself, thinking I knew enough, but that lost me a lot of money in poor investment performance etc.

You're right pacer- it was a bit 'glib' of me!

Our FA does know that we're Remain, but I do feel he sort of 'taunts' me a bit about it every time I (rarely) see him, which tends to be 'annual review' time.

I guess the upside of Old Mutual having the cash is that they're hard-headed pragmatists; and I guess even my FA wouldn't suddenly 'decide' that our risk profile (which is largely low as we're both 55-60) suggests putting all our cash into- I don't know- Sterling bonds?- the day before we officially Brexit!

What I'd like to think about is actually sending cash to Oz where we hold an account (we're dual citizens) to 'weather' the Brexit storm in the only way we can..? But I'd have no idea about the tax implications of that etc.

@Blushah

Couple of thoughts:

1. any pensions advisor you use must be qualified to advise on AU and UK pension law and tax law. As you will know, pensions are not covered by any dual taxation agreement and so both systems must be fully understood. You may be better biting the bullet and researching this yourself....international financial advisors have a well deserved reputation as thieves and charlatans

2. do it understand you want to hedge with Aussie dollars? You certainly don't need to send money to Oz to do that (and yes there would be potential ATO implications of found that, or at least witholding taxation in Oz, self assessment in UK etc etc) You can open AUD accounts in UK, or offshore (not Oz) if you prefer. You can also choose to hold ETFs of the Australian stock market within your UK pension and S&S arrangements).

3. Any IFA who is allowing their personal ideology to blind them to the unprecedented financial risks of Brexit especially to anyone who has international interests is not fit to remain in the profession. FFS even John Redwood and Jacob Rees Mogg are telling their investors to ditch the UK 😂