About Smith Weale Associates
We provide unbiased, independent financial advice on a range of areas including retirement and pension planning including ‘Pension Freedom’, savings and investments, inheritance tax planning, life assurances, equity release and long term care funding.
We provide services in a variety of ways.
- Transactional Services – these are ‘one off’ transactional services such as arranging an equity release, putting in place a life assurance policy, dealing with a single advice requirement or managing a retiring client.
- On-going Services – Most of our clients work with us on an ongoing basis. We like it this way. This lets us help clients with longer term financial planning and where we feel we can make a real difference to people’s financial future.
We might be managing a pension fund or an investment, in which case would provide regular valuations, investment advice and review meetings, or maybe you are looking for advice around Equity Release, in which case we will tailor the service and fees to suit your requirements.
We look forward to meeting with our ongoing service clients at least annually where we can discuss your changing requirements, ensuring that the financial plans we have put in place for you are still doing what we need them to.
At the time of writing (April 2024) we look after approximately 280 clients for whom we provide a full, bespoke and ongoing financial planning service.
Many of our ongoing service clients are longstanding clients of many years.
An initial consultation is at our expense, and without obligation. At the very least we would expect you to leave the meeting in a greater informed position than at the start, thus enabling you to make a more informed decision going forward. We might arrange for the first chat to be over the telephone or where appropriate, email, helping us to understand what you are looking to achieve, and where we might help you.
We do point out to every prospective client our charging structure is geared towards clients looking for advice on retirement funds and investments of £100,000 or more, thus enabling us to remain competitive and give the service clients would expect and deserve.
Contact us today, we would love to hear from you.
What protection do I have?
We will always endeavour to ensure the products recommended are suitable for you. When we are advising you on regulated products (including investments, insurance and some forms of mortgages) you have the protection of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
If you are unhappy about the advice or service you have received you should firstly contact the firm that provided the advice or service. This gives us the chance to put things right and/or to provide our own version of events. Should you remain dissatisfied you may be entitled to refer your complaint to the FOS who will investigate the complaint independently and make a ruling. The FOS work with clients and financial advisers to resolve a complaint, and when they do have to make a ruling it is binding upon the firm. Full details of how to contact the FOS together with information about how to complain are available from their website – www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk or by telephoning 0800 023 4 567.
If you try to submit a complaint to the firm and the firm is dissolved, or unable to meet its obligations, you may have recourse to the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme). This service is funded by levies on firms that are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to protect customers where firms have closed or gone into liquidation.
The above list of services offered is not exhaustive but does demonstrate typical areas of advice. Please feel free to contact us with ANY query, it will be our pleasure to help where we can.