Fee-only, flat-fee, and slow on purpose.
Good financial planning is mostly listening, arithmetic and patience. Very little of it is product selection.
I spent eleven years somewhere that paid me more for recommending more.
The advice was compliant and the incentives were still wrong, and after a decade of noticing that I would rather not, I left and set this up.
Sableford is fee-only. We take no commission, we have no products of our own, and we are paid the same amount whether you invest everything, some of it, or nothing at all. It is a slower way to build a firm and it removes the argument from every conversation.
Four commitments
Written into our client agreement, not just onto a website.
Fees in pounds
A flat annual figure, agreed in advance and reviewed once a year. It does not rise because your portfolio did.
No commission, ever
We are paid by you and only by you. No provider pays us anything for recommending them.
Advice you can act on without us
Every recommendation is explained well enough that you could carry it out yourself. Some clients do, and that is a fine outcome.
We will tell you to do nothing
Often the right answer is that your existing arrangements are fine. Hearing that is worth the meeting.
Three meetings before anything is recommended
A free hour, in person or on video, spent almost entirely on questions. No recommendations are made and nothing is sold.
If it makes sense to go further, we agree a fixed fee for a written plan and gather the detail. You can stop at the plan and take it elsewhere.
We present the plan, talk through the options and the risks, and only then discuss whether you want ongoing work and what it would cost.
Who you would be working with
Two advisers and a client manager. You will know all three by name.
Elaine Sableford
Chartered financial planner, on the Financial Advisers Register
Rob Iyer
Financial planner — later life and estate, on the Financial Advisers Register
Nadine Frost
An hour of questions, and nothing sold.
If we are not right for you, we will say so in the first meeting rather than the third.