Inheritance Tax Planning
If you properly plan and prepare, you could save your family thousands of pounds of inheritance tax payments. But if you don’t put a plan in place before your death, your family could end up paying a huge death tax bill...[read more]
The Cost of Long Term Care
Most of us don’t contemplate setting money aside for the unforeseen. We cannot prepare for things that do not occur to us. For this reason, the cost of long-term care for family member, a relative or ourselves comes as a complete, unpleasant surprise, and a weighty burden on our finances...[read more]
The 8 Things You Should Consider About Income in Retirement
Long before you approach retirement, you need to consider how you will provide income during your later years. What provisions have you put in place for income during your retirement?...[read more]
The Low-Down on Lifetime Mortgages
A Lifetime Mortgage is a form of equity release product that allows you to live in your home whilst enjoying a steady income stream from the equity in your home. This is a particularly good form of mortgage/loan product for senior citizens who do not have any heirs or do not plan to leave an inheritance...[read more]
What you need to know about Critical Illness Cover
Critical Illness Cover is a type of insurance that comes into effect if the holder is no longer able to provide for their family financially due to terminal illness or death. The cover provides financial assistance in the form of a tax-free payment made as a lump sum or incremental monthly payments...[read more]
Top Ten Reasons for Remortgages
At times of financial crisis, one major asset that you have is your home. The bricks and mortar are highly valuable, even during a recession. When you need access to additional money, it is always possible for you to benefit from remortgaging to free up some of the equity in your home. A remortgage is not something to take lightly, but it is something that should be carefully considered and the benefits weighed...[read more]
The Things You Need to Know about Buy to Let Mortgages
Buy-to-let mortgages are specially tailored to suit the needs of individuals, or groups, wishing to invest in properties for the purposes of renting to tenants. With this type of mortgage, the amount available to a potential investor is dependent on the value of the properties rental value...[read more]
Top Ten Tips about Buying Homes Overseas
Think about the reasons you are buying the property, consider whether you are buying the property in order to have a holiday home, or as a long-term investment...[read more]
What is Keyman Insurance?
Keyman is a type of life insurance that is designed to protect businesses against the financial losses caused by the death or long-term incapacity of their key employees. Keyman insurance is often an integral part of the financial affairs of large corporations, however, medium to small sized businesses often forget to consider, or are unaware of the existence of Keyman insurance...[read more]
Ten Things You Should Know About Life Assurance
Life assurance, also known as life insurance, is a financial contract agreed between a person(s) and an insurance policy provider. The contract stipulates that money will be paid out in the event of death or terminal illness concerning the person(s) for which the policy is intended...[read more]
Pension Fund Transfer - a Brief Guide
You will have heard of the pensions crisis that is looming in the UK and you probably want to ensure yourself that you’ll be secure come retirement time. ...[read more]
ISA Investments
The term ISA stands for Individual Savings Account. They should be a necessary addition to the financial portfolio of anyone has savings or capital. To qualify for an ISA you must be a UK resident and aged eighteen or above (sixteen for cash ISAs)...[read more]
Top 5 Reasons to Build a Long-Term Relationship with your IFA
Your IFA or Independent Financial Advisor should be a qualified expert in all areas, competent to offer professional advice on mortgages, savings and investments, annuities, commercial finance, equity release and life assurance. But why should you build a lasting relationship with your IFA?...[read more]
Ten Things You Need to Know About Equity Release (Lifetime Mortgages)
Many people are turning to Equity Release to unlock the real value in their homes. Through equity release, people are able to more fully enjoy their retirement. These are ten points that you should consider about Equity Release and Lifetime Mortgages...[read more]
Pension Annuities
An Annuity is a product that you buy for a lump sum that guarantees an income for the rest of your life. At present, Pension Annuities are only available through insurance companies. When you buy an annuity, you sell your saved pension fund to exchange it for a regular income...[read more]
Shared Equity Mortgages – A thing of the future?
Getting on the first rung of the property ladder is becoming more and more difficult due to widening gap between property prices and affordability levels of first time buyers...[read more]
Choosing a Mortgage Broker
Choosing a mortgage has never been easy, but in recent years the market has exploded. Gone are the days when the major decision you had to make was between a variable and a fixed rate...[read more]
Pensions - The Basics
What benefits can you expect and when will they be available to you?....[read more]
The safe way to buy overseas
Knowing you want an overseas holiday home is the easy bit. Knowing where to start can be far trickier....[read more]
Commercial Mortgage Advice
A lower cost commercial mortgage will increase the bottom line profit of a business....[read more]
Life Assurance - A Rough Calulation
A common question asked by our clients is how much life cover do I need?...[read more]
Why do annuity rates vary so much?
The highest annuity available from pension funds is a single life, level payment pension with no guarantees...[read more]
Stamp Duty Increases
The average amount of Stamp Duty paid on a home has increased by 24.76%, says Mform.co.uk....[read more]
An Independent Financial Advisers Guide to Family Protection
Prolonged ill-health, disability and death are all major threats to a family's financial security....[read more]
Estate Planning
Estate planning is to preserve, protect and pass down family wealth....[read more]
Capital Gains Tax (CGT)
The Chancellor has confirmed that there will be an 18% flat rate of CGT applying to amounts over the annual exempt amount (£9,600 for 2008/09) on disposals after 6 April 2008...[read more]
50 is the new 60
The link between stopping work and taking pension benefits has been broken creating a brand new market for income drawdown...[read more]
Understanding Life Assurance - Part One
From the end of the Second World War, the vast majority of life assurance policies were purchased from the 'Insurance Man'...[read more]
Understanding Life Assurance - Part Two
So, what is life assurance and why do people buy it? For that matter, what is the difference between life insurance and life assurance...[read more]
Understanding Life Assurance - Part Three
Why is it that different companies charge different life cover premiums for what is essentially the same product?...[read more]
