Fee-only advice, answered

Two things. As a Registered Investment Advisor, the practice owes a continuing legal duty to put the client’s financial interest ahead of its own on every account, retirement and taxable alike. Fee-only means that no commission, revenue share or referral fee is ever accepted from a fund company, insurer or broker. The only compensation is the fee the client agrees to in writing.

For ongoing wealth management most households hold $500,000 or more in investable assets, which keeps the tiered fee schedule cost-effective. The standalone flat-fee comprehensive plan and the equity compensation engagement carry no asset minimum, so professionals still building wealth, and people who prefer to invest for themselves, can take CFP® fiduciary advice too.

Yes. Many clients begin with a flat-fee comprehensive plan or a retirement income strategy, and receive the full analysis and a written implementation checklist with no obligation to move into ongoing management. If a client asks the practice to manage the implementation within six months, half of the planning fee is credited towards the first year.

Transparent, liquid holdings: low-expense institutional ETFs, index funds and ladders of individual US Treasury or investment-grade municipal bonds. Client capital is never placed in illiquid non-traded REITs, opaque private placements or annuities with heavy surrender charges. All investing carries risk, including the loss of capital, and nothing on this page is a forecast of returns.

No. Every Book action on this site opens the contact page, and the contact form sends a written enquiry – nothing on these pages reserves a time or holds one open. A time is agreed afterwards, in a reply, once the practice has read what was sent and checked whether the question is one of the six services at all.

The practice never takes custody of client money. Accounts stay titled in the client’s own name, or the name of their trust, at an independent, SIPC-member institutional custodian. Clients keep direct online access and receive monthly statements from the custodian itself; the practice’s authority is limited to placing agreed trades, rebalancing and moving money to the client’s own linked bank accounts.

Not by design. A taxable portfolio is never sold off wholesale: existing holdings move in kind to the new custodian without a taxable sale. The portfolio and tax advisers then review unrealised gains lot by lot, keep tax-efficient positions where that is sensible, offset gains with harvested losses and phase out high-cost legacy funds across several tax years.

No spreadsheets and no statements. Bring the two or three financial questions most on your mind. If both sides see a good fit, a secure encrypted portal is set up before the diagnostic meeting, and documents are exchanged there rather than through an ordinary website message or an email attachment.

Account numbers, balances, tax identification numbers, scanned statements and copies of identity documents. The contact form asks for none of them and the practice will not ask for them by that route either. A message describing the question in general terms is enough to begin; the detail is collected later, once there is an agreed scope and an agreed way to send it.

Ongoing clients usually meet twice a year: a spring review of tax and cash flow and an autumn review of the portfolio and year-end planning, plus whenever a major decision comes up. With the client’s permission, annual tax projections and 1099 summaries go directly to their CPA, and trust titling is coordinated with their estate attorney.