Sebastian Elwell – Director of Switchfoot Wealth is Farnham’s only SOLLA Accredited Independent Financial Adviser*, what does this mean and why have we invested in becoming SOLLA Accredited?

What is SOLLA and why should I look for an adviser who is a member?

SOLLA is the Society of Later Life Advisers, and was established in 2008 to improve standards and accessibility to regulated financial advice specifically for older people and their families. SOLLA is a not-for-profit organisation, so any profits it makes are put back into SOLLA.

We believe it is extremely important that people in later life – and their loved ones – can be confident about the transparency, independence and honesty of the financial advice they receive. It’s vital to get planning and investment right at this stage of life, and matters that financial advice comes from someone who is empathetic to your needs and is genuinely giving financial advice that meets your needs.

SOLLA sets out the following commitments:

• Promoting and raising awareness amongst people, their families and professional advisers of financial issues faced in retirement and later life
• Building relationships with statutory and voluntary agencies, charities, housing and social care providers, financial services firms and those organisations who are involved in the financial wellbeing of those in later life
• Raising the standards of practice of those engaged in advising older people by promoting the highest levels of professionalism in financial advice
• Identifying and developing best practice by the provision of high-quality training and the distribution of the latest information and know how in later life issues
• Acting as a source of technical excellence for later life advisers
• Actively inputting into legislative and policy changes and contributing to debates on policy

The organisation also sets high standards for members. In order to be a full member of SOLLA, a financial adviser must achieve the Later Life Adviser Accreditation. This involves a detailed application that includes supplying evidence of technical knowledge, continuing professional development and examples of how the adviser has applied their technical knowledge in a client case.

Once the application has been approved, the adviser takes a face-to-face assessment, which is broken into two parts: and audit of evidence and a work-based assessment. A report following the assessment is then reviewed by an expert accreditation panel which makes the decision about whether to admit the adviser as a member.

An approved SOLLA member will have demonstrated expertise in a range of advice areas typically affecting later life clients including:

• Retirement Planning – pensions and annuities
• Funding for care home fees
• Funding for care in your own home
• Equity release and other property options
• Savings and investment planning
• Tax matters and estate and wealth planning

These are all important issues for later life financial planning and at Switchfoot Wealth, we believe in doing everything we can to give our clients confidence in our approach to financial planning and our commitment to getting the qualifications and memberships that ensure we work within the most appropriate codes of practice and affiliations. In addition to being a full member of SOLLA, Sebastian is also a member of STEP, a global professional association for solicitors, accountants, financial advisers and other professionals specialising in family inheritance and succession planning. This means that people looking for independent financial advice in Farnham and the surrounding area can rely on qualified, expert and friendly advice that will help during challenging times.

You can find out more by visiting the SOLLA website. If you’d like to talk to us about later life financial planning, please contact us for an initial chat today.

The value of your investment (and any income from them) can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

*Source – SOLLA Find an Adviser Tool – October 2020

https://societyoflaterlifeadvisers.co.uk/find-an-adviser/?SearchUnits=m&InclusiveSearch=false&SearchRadius=&Position%5Bsouth%5D=51.1765154&Position%5Bwest%5D=-0.8291997&Position%5Bnorth%5D=51.2421418&Position%5Beast%5D=-0.7467705&Location=Farnham

BLUE DOOR BESPOKE

The Estate Planning

Approaching asset disposal is a potential communicational minefield, but one of the reasons I started Blue Door Bespoke. That in conjunction with having witnessed the levels of stress my parents were presented with some years ago when my grandparents died.

Whether to do with probate and estate planning, downsizing or straightforward decluttering, we launched Blue Door, and have since been referred many times by the solicitors, or other professionals involved in the process, as we provide an “under one roof” solution. This means that our clients have only one team to deal with – aside from their solicitor – whom they trust, which simplifies the process and also reduces significantly the amount of potential stress involved with dealing with a much larger   cross section of suppliers.

Families faced with handling a probate situation are likely to be emotionally very vulnerable and require sensitive handling, empathy and understanding. Trust and transparency are key. Memories are precious and need to be respected as such, not ridden over rough shod or dismissed as part of any number of financial transactions. The course of estate planning and asset dispersal is no different.

Making plans for the financial dispersal of your estate when you die is a really hard eventuality to face, for all sorts of reasons – a bit like thinking about starting a pension when you’re only 22. But there is so much to be gained from forward planning and putting wills or trusts in place.

Not only does this make this a smoother transition for the executors and beneficiaries

– on both an emotional and practical level – but there are potentially significant other benefits also.

What we have found though is that other than the obvious assets such as property or a car, many other items are left unaccounted for, and their potential value overlooked and therefore not included. On that basis, it can make sense, when planning ahead, to either include these items or disperse them ahead of time, whether they are of significant sentimental value and/or financial value, and it is something we deal with frequently, working in collaboration with the family.

If the family decided for example that there are items that could be auctioned or sold, we will arrange for an auctioneer/valuer to visit the site for advice, guidance and/or valuations. We will bring in specialist collectors. We will also dispose of unwanted items that can be resold – rather than auctioned – to the charity/charities of choice.

If a property needs to be sold as part of the estate planning process – perhaps releasing capital for example – we also have a national team of trusted independent real estate agents, all of whom share our ethos and approach, and with whom we work closely so that we can project manage the whole process, including the final clearing if needs be.

The over-riding point here is that there is no master plan or a “one size fits all” approach. We will fulfil, as far as possible, what our clients need in order to meet the practicalities of their estate planning goals. It might be just a guidance consultation; it might be project managing a little or overseeing the whole project.   Each family’s situation is completely different to the next, and deserves to be treated as such.

By Claire Potter – Blue Door Bespoke