How we are paid
On receiving your enquiry we invite you to come to our offices (or if this is not possible at your place of work or home) for a preliminary meeting. The purpose of this meeting is firstly to establish whether we are able to assist with your needs and help you meet your objectives, and secondly to discuss how we would be paid for our counsel and services once you have instructed us to proceed.
There is no charge for this preliminary one-hour meeting, and no obligation on either side.
If you instruct us to proceed we offer the option of working on a commission or fee basis.
If we proceed on a fee basis we will work either at our standard hourly rate or for a fixed fee for an agreed plan of work. For fee work we will implement a fee agreement and we will ensure that you are fully aware of any costs involved before any commitment is made. Fees will usually be based on time spent and evaluated at a rate per hour calculated to cover our costs.
You may elect to proceed with our advice on a commission basis where we move on to implement our recommendations by arranging, for instance, a life policy or pension plan. In this instance, we may be paid commission by the provider, usually an insurance company or an investment house for the introduction of our client's business. We will always tell you about any commission we earn and it will be taken into account in working out our fee.
We will always ensure that the cost of our advice will be the same whether the fee or the commission option is chosen.