Our Financial Advice Fees

All our fees are set out in writing in our Private Client Agreement. However, in order to help you decide whether we might be the right firm for you we’ve also decided to set them out here in our website.

It’s rare to see an advisers fees published on their website because only one in ten advice firms actually publish them. We are one of those. We believe that transparency is one of the key strengths of any client/adviser relationship. So, we might as well start as we mean to go on.

Before we list our fees, we are required to make a statement about our authorisation and the services we offer.

Authorisation Statement

Christina Clegg Financial Planning Services Limited is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Our Financial Services register number is 735704.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates financial services in the UK and you can check our authorisation and permitted activities on the Financial Services Register by visiting the FCA’s website

www.fca.org.uk/firms/systems-reporting/register or by contacting the FCA on 0800 111 6768.

Our ethical policy

We are committed to providing the highest standard of financial advice and service possible. The interest of our clients is paramount to us and to achieve this we have designed our systems and procedures to place you at the heart of our business. In doing so, we will:

Be open, honest and transparent in the way we deal with you.
Not place our interests above yours.
Communicate clearly, promptly and without jargon.
Seek your views and perception of our dealings with you to ensure it meets your expectations or to identify any improvements required.

Our services

Christina Clegg Financial Planning Services Limited is able to act on your behalf in advising you on investments, pensions, non -investment insurance contracts and mortgages. We offer products and services as follows:

Investments –We provide independent investment advice. We will consider a range of regulated products from the available market that can meet the investment objectives of a retail client, but we will only provide a recommendation to you when we know the product is suitable for your personal circumstances.
Pensions – We provide independent advice on personal pension schemes. We will only recommend a product where it meets your objectives, but we will consider these products following a review of all the available providers in the market.
For Non-investment protection contracts, we are an intermediary and will act on your behalf when providing advice and making personal recommendations to you. We will do this based on a fair and personal analysis of insurers for term assurance, income protection, critical illness.
For general insurance contracts we are an intermediary and will act on your behalf when recommending an insurer based on your demands and needs from a fair analysis of the market. The insurers we consider will be listed to you when we carry out our research. It will be your responsibility to ensure the policy meets your demands and needs for building and contents, private medical insurance, accident sickness and unemployment.
Full details of the products we recommend will be confirmed in the product literature you will receive before it is arranged. We will inform you if any investment we recommend restricts future access to your capital.

You should be aware that investments carry varying degrees of risk and as their underlying value can fall as well as rise you may not get back the full amount invested.

Our investment services and charges

We provide you with an initial consultation free of charge up to 1 hour. We will discuss the costs and levels of our services both initially and throughout our relationship with you.

Our charges include:

Gathering information about your existing financial arrangements and full personal circumstances.
Understanding your investment knowledge and attitude and tolerance towards investment risk.
Understanding your needs, objectives, aspirations and priorities.
Evaluating your current financial position.
Developing a financial plan to meet your needs, objectives, aspirations and priorities.
Recommendation of an asset allocation model that matches your risk profile and the subsequent assessment and suitability of any existing holdings.
Preparation of our recommendations to you.
Full written report documenting our recommendations.
Subsequent appointments to explain and discuss our recommendations in detail, and further appointments if required.

Should you instruct us to proceed with any of our recommendations we will act for you in the following ways:

Manage all fund and policy administration on your behalf.
Provide regular updates to keep you informed of progress.
Ensure all your documents are issued in line with your expectations.
Provide confirmation of all actions taken on your behalf in writing.

We charge for our services on the basis of a percentage of investments under advice, with a minimum and maximum fee.

The percentage charge is applied on a tiered basis according to the value of your investments under advice, as follows:

So, for example:

For investments under advice of £75,000, our charges would be:

£75,000 x 3% = £2,250.

But as this is below our minimum fee of £3,000 our charges would be £3,000

For investments under advice of £300,000, our charges would be:

£150,000 x 3% = £4,500, plus

£150,000 x 2% = £3,000

Total charge of £7,500

For investments under advice of £750,000, our charges would be:

£150,000 x 3% = £4,500, plus

£350,000 x 2% = £7,000, plus

£250,000 x 1% = £2,500

Total charge of £14,000

Our regular contribution savings or investment charges

Our charge for implementing a regular contribution savings or investment is £1000 and we will issue an Invoice within 7 days of your investment plan going live. You can pay this under either of the two options listed below:

Option 1

You can pay this directly on receipt of the invoice. If you choose this option, payment must be made in full within 30 days of issue.

Option 2

You can pay the implementation fee through your policy. The deductions are limited to a maximum of 50% of each monthly contribution.

For monthly contributions of £166.68 and over, the payment will be deducted proportionally from each monthly contribution during the first year.

For monthly contributions under £166.67, 11 payments of 50% of each monthly contribution will be deducted from month 2 to month 12, and the balance will be paid directly by you at the start of your policy, to bring the total fee payable to £1000 (as illustrated in Example 1, below).

Example 1; if your monthly contribution is £100 our implementation fee would be £1000. This will be collected by deducting £50 from each monthly contribution for months 2 to 12 (11 x £50 = £550). As this is less than the ‘policy arrangement and implementation’ fee of £1000, we would charge you the balance of £450 by direct payment, at the start of your policy. The total fee payable would be £1000.

Example 2; if your monthly contribution is £200, the fee will be collected by deducting £83.33 from each monthly contribution for this first 12 months. The full policy arrangement and implementation fee of £1000 will have been paid and therefore no further charges will be applied.

Should you decide to pay this charge through your policy and payments to the policy subsequently cease, we will calculate the total payments received to date and charge you the balance.

For example, if you invest £200, we will deduct £83.33 from each monthly contribution for the first 12 months. Should payments cease after month 6 (and £499.98 has been collected) the difference between this and the policy arrangement and implementation fee of £1000 would be charge i.e. £500.02.

Our general insurance and protection services charges

Similar to our investment services above, we will provide you with a personal and financial review prior to making our recommendation(s) to you.

Should you accept our recommendation(s) we will arrange the implementation of this/these for you. The reasons for our recommendations will also be provided to you in a written report.

We do not charge a fee for our General Insurance and Protection services as we will normally receive commission from the policy provider. You will not be subject to VAT for this service.

Our Ongoing Service Proposition and Engagement charges

Your financial objectives may change over time due to changes in your lifestyle or circumstances. We believe it is essential to ensure that your portfolio continues to meet your lifestyle and investment objectives. Our on-going review and management service offers:

Structured reviews to give you peace of mind.
Assessment of your current circumstances and any changes to your plans that are needed.
Regular updates and information regarding your holdings.
A choice of differing levels of support depending on your needs.
Ongoing support with correspondence and administration issues.

We recognise that all clients do not have the same service requirements, so you are free to choose the level of service that best suits your needs. However, some service levels will not be suitable for more complex clients and your adviser will guide on the most suitable service level for you accordingly.

Our charges are guaranteed not to increase within the first 12 months of your contract with us. Should we need to increase our charges after this period you will be given notice of the changes and the opportunity to decide whether to continue with the revised level of charges.

It should be noted that it is not compulsory for you to agree to one of our services and we do offer a transactional only service which is free of charge but does provide limited characteristics.

Any change to the level of services throughout this agreement will result in a pro-rata charge being applied.

Our charges for our on-going management service as well as the services we provide are set out in the following table :

* This service level is not suitable for the majority of clients including for example:

Client who are 5 years or less away from planned retirement.
Clients who have entered into flexi-access drawdown.
Clients with a potential inheritance tax liability or other complex requirements.

We charge for our services on the basis of a percentage of your investments, with a minimum and maximum fee, as follows:

So, for example:

Selecting our Bronze Service Level, with investments under advice of £150,000, our charges would be:

£150,000 x 0.65% = £975

But as this is below our minimum fee of £1,500 our charges would be £1,500 per annum.

Selecting our Silver Service Level, with investments under advice of £500,000, our charges would be:

£500,000 x 0.70% = £3,500 per annum.

Selecting our Gold Service Level, with investments under advice of £750,000, our charges would be:

£750,000 x 0.75% = £5,625 per annum.

You can choose to pay these charges directly or by deduction from the policy(ies) you hold. Should you wish to pay directly you can spread the payment over a 12-month period by standing order. At each anniversary of this agreement, we will revalue your policy(ies) and notify you to any revised annual charges due to any fluctuation of your investment(s) at that time.

When the level of on-going services has been agreed, these are deemed to commence immediately and payable (monthly/yearly) in arrears. You can choose to cancel this at any time by providing us with written confirmation of your decision. Payments would then cease within 7 business days or after collection of any due proportion of any period charges if later; however please be aware once you have cancelled your service agreement the on-going service you receive will cease.

Because the fee is based on a percentage of the value of your investments, where the value of your investments rises, the charge for this service will increase; conversely, if the value of your investments falls, the charge for this service will decrease.

Additional charges for clients under an ongoing service agreement

For clients who have entered into an ongoing service agreement and require further advice, we charge for our advice on a fixed fee basis. Our fees vary according to the advice and services required.

Our most common charges are detailed below.

Further complex and non-mainstream advice charges will be individually assessed based on our assessment of the work required.

Cancellation rights

In most cases you can exercise a right to cancel by withdrawing from the contract. In general terms you will normally have a 30-day cancellation period for a life, pure protection, payment protection or pension policy and a 14-day cancellation period for all other policies.

For pure protection policies the start of the cancellation period will normally begin when you are informed that the contract has been concluded or, if later, when you have received the contractual terms and conditions. In other cases, the cancellation period will begin on the day the contract is concluded or, if later, the day on which you receive the contractual terms and conditions. Instructions for exercising the right to cancel, if applicable, will be contained in the relevant product disclosure information which will be issued to you.

If you cancel a single premium contract, you may be required to pay for any loss you might reasonably incur in cancelling it which is caused by market movements. This means that, in certain circumstances, you might not get back the full amount you invested if you cancel the policy.

VAT

Under current legislation our services are not subject to VAT, but should this change in the future, and where VAT becomes due, we will notify you before conducting any further work.

PRICE COMPARISON

As we’ve said 90% of advice firms do not publish their fees, preferring to keep them under wraps until they see you face to face. On that basis it is difficult for us to make direct comparisons. However, we believe that our fees offer excellent value for money. We think that our fees are below the market average. We are not the cheapest, but we are a long way from being the most expensive.

Perhaps the best way to think about our fees is to have a look at what our clients think about us on our Testimonials page.

Nearly 400 clients have taken the time to give us a positive review.