Your IndustryMay 11 2016

Diary of an Adviser: Paul Howard

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The rest of the day is spent at home looking after the eldest and, not surprisingly, I do not get much further work done.

Tuesday

Today is a fun day in the office – looking into life assurance for one client with three buy-to-let mortgages and a residential mortgage. He regrettably was declined cover through another adviser over one particular health issue, which seriously annoyed him (the other adviser lost him as a client, so I need to tread carefully).

Another client needs a ‘Bed & Isa’ to be prepared – yes, early in the tax year, but she will not have any new cash to invest – with the proceeds coming from an offshore bond she was gifted. For once, the minimum retained plan value means we cannot surrender the most appropriate number of segments.

Wednesday

Today, I have the first client meeting of the week – first one with a new prospect wanting to access his pensions to support his new business venture, and a second meeting with another client to go through a pension recommendation report.

Surprisingly, both the prospect and client are speaking to other advisers, and so I will need to wait on the client to see if they wish to proceed to the next stage. It seems about the only recently promoted Money Advice Service thing to catch on, which is to ‘shop around’ for an adviser.

Thursday

I have another new client meeting and, for once, a nice and simple one – the client has retired and is looking to draw the benefits under her four pension plans.

I thought the morning was pretty busy – but the afternoon vanished on me as I booked in four clients meetings for the following week.

I have some good news though: the legal paperwork for the office purchase finally arrived, but I noticed in the pack there was an invoice from a ‘Property Management Committee’ which charged £600 last year for what appeared to be not a lot of things.

Fortunately, after speaking to a member of the Property Management Committee – it is optional on joining, and the Property Management Committee does several things for the commercial properties in the area. This may explain why the estate agent, which is in the same parade of shops, failed to mention this in either the property particulars or when we discussed the property.

Friday

Friday is allocated for the preparation of a complex report for a meeting booked in next week, which involves buy-to-let properties, principal private residency relief, inheritance tax and Sharia-compliant investments.

To add ‘spice’ to the day, I spoke to a potential new client introduced through another advisory firm, who wanted to discuss arranging a Long Term Care annuity for her mother. Her mother is not needing nursing care yet, so should the legislation which came out of the Dilnot Report ever actually be implemented, it may not have a bearing on her current situation.

Paul Howard is proprietor of Reading-based Box Financial Planning