- Update on change to GoddardFry
Now almost a year on from the formal changeover to GoddardFry Wealth Management from Goddard & Co Financial Services and what a year it has been!
We have built a strong core team to handle administration, technical research, reports and delivering our financial planning services to clients.
In February Dellane Chokoza joined us from Quilter where he has worked in a department handling insurance after studying Accounting and Finance in Southampton. Dellane is assisting me with administrative work while he builds his knowledge in more technical areas and begins his professional studies.
In time we plan to add further administration staff as our client base and services grow.
- Michael taking a backseat
As many of you will be aware, Michael Purchase is taking more of a behind the scenes role as he moves into partial retirement, which provides important continuity of service to our clients.
As part of this change it will be myself who is the main point of contact for clients, handling meetings and conducting the financial planning going forward.
The fourth man in our team here is Dan Oakes a well qualified and experienced Paraplanner who helps with the technical elements of producing our reports and recommendations. And we are in the process of adding another member to the team on the technical side to increase capacity.
This gives us a great base to deliver a high quality service to clients in 2022 and beyond.
Clearly we have grown, and will continue to grow but it is important to us that we remain a very much personal service and never stray into a corporate mentality or attitude.
- Turbulent Times
Its been a tough period for investing since the markets started to fall in December over Omicron and then the tensions and eventual conflict in Ukraine through February, March and on.
We shared the view of many market watchers that 2022 and 2023 should be good years as the world bounces back from the pandemic with much pent up demand and government spending coming through but clearly this major conflict, with its terrible death and destruction, will likely have a global impact.
The World Bank and IMF who monitor the global economic outlook have both downgraded their expectations for growth from around 5-6% to 2-3%.
However, with inflation now circa 9% in the UK (potentially hitting 10% this year.) and interest rates at the banks still hard pressed to top 1%, stocks and shares remain the only real way to get positive long term results and we might now be seeing the start of the market rebounding.
- Expanding into Mortgages
Another change in the near future will be the addition of mortgages to our offering by bringing an experienced mortgage adviser into GoddardFry.
We feel this is a complimentary service in addition to the pension, investment and insurance work we already do and hopefully clients will appreciate having more services delivered by a single firm rather than having to deal with multiple firms to complete their financial needs.
Gavin Torpey CeMap is an experienced mortgage and protection adviser who has helped 100s of clients over his career and we are very excited to welcome him onboard as of the 27th June.
So whether is a fixed term rate ending later this year for a residential / commercial arrangement or reviewing your portfolio of Buy to Let properties, then please do get in touch.
If there is anything more urgent then still please do get in touch as I am myself a qualified mortgage adviser and can likely, at the least, point you in the right direction.
- Importance of Protection
Alongside our move into mortgages we will have more capacity to review and recommend insurance whether this is personal cover for a mortgage, family financial cover or cover related to your business.
Every year the industry reports that the UK population is massively under insured, many people might have their mortgage covered but can your partner afford the rest of the household bills, school fees and such on just one income? Do they actually have an income? For the cost of a flashy mobile phone or super-fast broadband package you can cover this. (https://www.uswitch.com/)
Would your business need to replace you if you were sick or injured? Does your business have key people that also need to be covered? Again, the cost of insurance versus the sums you might need to find to hire someone in make a compelling argument.
You could also see this as a way of getting valid additional benefits via your business and its revenues.
- Equity Release
The final point of this inaugural newsletter is to mention that we do already and plan to expand our capacity to advise on Equity Release.
You might be in shock, ‘isn’t Equity Release a cowboy industry full of rip off merchants?’ Well, that might have been true in the 90s but now it’s as regulated and legislated as any other financial area.
According to the Equity Release Council ‘Over-55 homeowners unlocked £1.17bn of property wealth in total during Q2 2021, up 2% from Q1 (£1.14bn) and up 67% (£698m) since a subdued Q2 last year during the first Covid-19 lockdown.’
Who are these lenders handing out billions of pounds? Legal and General, Standard Life and Nationwide Building Society are just three names that spring to mind.
And why would anyone use Equity Release? Well, the main reasons are giving children and grand children inheritances early, for example to get on the property ladder, while their parents or grand parents are still alive to see it.
Home improvements and alteration to cope with limited mobility. Extra income to enjoy retirement. As part of the financial settlement in a divorce and many other others.
Once rates were eye watering and they do remain higher than those for normal mortgages but given that you can make no repayments on tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds for twenty or thirty years costs in the region of 2 – 5% should not seem unreasonable and with house prices shooting up by 10 – 15% in many regions its actually a reducing impact over time. (https://www.ons.gov.uk/)
With the addition of Gavin we hope to assist clients with all sorts of mortgage needs whether this is residential, Buy to Let, Corporate and of course Equity Release.
In future newsletters we plan to touch on areas like tax efficiency, are you making the most of your allowances? Estate planning and managing IHT. Business Protection and how things are doing on the markets.
- Inter-Generational Wealth
Two significant and inter-linked areas that clients are often raising with us are about how to manage potential inheritance tax bills and how to set up investments for children and grandchildren.
If you wish to retain your funds there is a range of options (Trusts, AIM ISA Portfolios, Business Property Relief and more) to limit and reduce an ever increasing IHT bill.
If you are happy to gift some capital and/or income now then again there are a lot of options like Lifetime ISAs (with 25% tax relief), personal pensions (with 20% tax relief), Junior ISAs and more.
The earlier you start thinking and planning, the more options you have and so, the better the end result.
- Round Up
Hopefully you have found some of this inaugural newsletter informative and potentially even interesting!
We would love to hear from you with any thoughts and of course if you have any specific interest in any of the areas covered.
Important note: The purpose of this newsletter is to provide technical and generic guidance and should not be interpreted as a personal recommendation or advice
Kind regards,
Alex Fry DipPFS
Director
GodddardFry Wealth Management Limited