When we start working with new clients I’m often asked about our fees, and how we, as a company, go about charging our clients.
As we are regulated in both Hong Kong and in the UK, we ensure we adhere closely to all the relevant regulations when it comes to how we charge for our services. However, we go beyond this by not only applying the highest standards required by any one regulator across all of our businesses, but by also being transparent about what the fees are in advance of you meeting with us and how we arrive at them.
We follow strict in-house guidelines and are committed to transparency in all our dealings with you.
As clients of Charlton House, the fees we charge will be determined by your financial aims and how you choose to work with us.
We are paid through the fees we agree with you
You won’t incur a charge for your Initial Meeting. We don’t believe it’s appropriate for you to have to pay us to find out about your personal situation and circumstances, and what you ultimately want to achieve with your finances.
So, you will only start paying fees when you formally ask us to start work on the Financial Strategy that we put together for you.
From that point, all the fees you’re charged will be agreed in advance and will be driven from our estimate of time involved.
It’s worth making it clear that we do not receive any remuneration through commissions or rebates through third-party investment providers – this archaic model (still sadly prevalent in many expat markets) is banned in the UK, however we have applied the same principle to our Hong Kong business too.
Our aim is to work with you throughout your lifetime. This way, you’ll maximise the value of having a dedicated wealth manager by your side, wherever you are.
Here are some of the key factors that affect the fees we charge.
1. The time spent on developing and implementing your Financial Strategy
Our fee structure is primarily based on the time we spend working for you.
We’ll often need to take time familiarising ourselves with your financial position before any meeting and this preparation often includes some research and analysis. In fact, throughout the entire process of developing your Financial Strategy, detailed research and critical analysis is an ongoing process that happens behind the scenes. This may include assessing a variety of structures, products, multi-jurisdictional tax issues and investments as well as producing lifetime cashflow forecast models to help you visually understand your position now and in the future.
Developing your Financial Strategy involves a series of meetings (usually 4 to 5) as we work with you to help you to define, quantify and prioritise your own unique set of financial goals and objectives more closely. This consultative process is necessary to be able to deliver advice that is truly bespoke and meaningful to you.
Your Financial Strategy will be presented to you in writing and, once you’ve confirmed you’re happy with our recommendations, we can then implement it, taking all the necessary actions that we’ve agreed with you.
Subsequently, we will maintain regular contact with clients who enter into our Ongoing Advisory Service — we also recommend a thorough consultation at least once a year through an Annual Progress Meeting. But by maintaining more frequent contact throughout the year we’ll always be ready to help out and discuss any issues you may have.
2. The complexity of your personal situation
This is obviously a key driver of the time spent developing your financial strategy. Broadly speaking, how your personal arrangements can affect your fees can be split into two categories:
Your personal financial circumstances
The amount you earn will often have a bearing on how much work we do for you.
Your tax affairs may well be complex, and your income could be derived from different sources, which might create scenarios and complicated issues where analysis and advice could be crucial to your financial future.
Additionally, if you have substantial assets and tax arrangements in different countries, this is liable to take up a lot of our time with assessment and advice and so we might need to coordinate other specialists as part of this.
If your assets include business ownership, that will add a further layer of complexity that could result in more work needing to be carried out.
Another factor can be if you’re a mixed-domicile couple. Sometimes this can present you with more tax planning opportunities, but it can also make tax planning more complex as we need to weigh up the pros and cons.
However, in some cases mixed-domicile spouses can simplify things and more often than not it all comes down to your individual circumstances.
The assets you currently hold
As well as your overall wealth, the type and range of assets you hold could also affect the amount of work we carry out for you.
Your assets may well include complex structures, such as trusts and company arrangements, as well as different types of investment.
All of these will require us to carry out thorough due diligence checks to ensure we have a clear understanding of what you have and how it’s held.
We will also need to analyse your arrangements in some depth to ensure we’re always giving you the most appropriate advice.
3. The speed in which you need advice delivered
It could be that you are facing a specific deadline and need urgent help in order to meet it.
For example, the UK tax year end can often pose time-sensitive challenges if you’re based in the UK, and as a result you may require expeditious advice and guidance.
Similarly, you may be relocating back to the UK and need help with your pre-UK residency tax planning, which can understandably be overlooked when you’re busy with everything else.
In these circumstances, we can deliver work more quickly than the usual timescales but there may be a financial cost if we need to bring in additional resources or reschedule other work.
4. The risk associated with the advice you need
As a professional advice firm, our long-term reputation is dependent on the quality and accuracy of the advice we give you, and our other clients.
Because of that, we take care to ensure that the work we do is of the highest possible quality and our advice is robust.
Much of the advice we give you will be straightforward, but some cases might involve more complexity, which presents a greater risk for us to advise on.
Sometimes this could be dictated by the different financial goals you need to address and meet.
Alternatively the accuracy of our advice may well be affected by any gaps there may be in your financial planning arrangements and the accuracy of the information we’ve used to inform the advice we give.
Get in touch
You can find out more about how we charge fees on our website. If you’d like to know more, or talk about your own financial circumstances, please get in touch.
You can contact us by email or, if you prefer to speak to us, you can reach us in the UK on +44 (0) 208 0044900 or in Hong Kong on +852 39039004.
Production
