Professional Connections

Accountants & Solicitors

Accountants and solicitors refer clients to us for specialist advice on topics such as:

Business Profit extraction.
Meeting company Auto-Enrolment pension scheme requirements.
Individual Pension planning such as employer contributions for Directors or self-employed individuals, purchasing commercial property through a pension and/or maximum funding pensions for the tax benefits.

Succession Planning.
Employee Benefits packages such as Group Life, Group Income Protection and Private Medical.
EIS and VCT – advice on the specialist high-risk investment, to benefit from the tax reliefs on offer through these types of schemes.

Structured Settlements – such as investing for long-term income, from lump sums received in compensation settlements.

Pensions and Divorce – advice regarding offsetting against other assets, splitting so that each person has the asset in their own name and attachment orders (earmarking), where the spouse gets a proportion of the pension once in payment.

More information on the areas in which we provide advice can be found in our Areas of advice section.
‍
We refer clients to accountants for:
‍

Confirmation of tax calculations – whilst we will often talk about the implications of a product from a tax perspective, we think it is vitally important for clients to discuss their individual positions with accountants and very much respect that relationship a client has with their accountant.

Specialist Tax advice – for more complex situations.
Payroll.
Personal Tax Returns.

We often refer clients to solicitors for:
‍

Trust setup.
Wills and Probate.
Power of Attorney.
Company setup and Cross Option Agreements.
Conveyancing.

STEP

STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Planning) is the leading global professional body for professionals working in the Private Client sector. It is multi-disciplinary with members from the legal, accountancy and banking professions, as well as wealth management.

We work with a number of STEP qualified accountant and solicitors, and we have an adviser; Richard Lawrance, who himself is a Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP); considered as the gold standard by professionals in the sector, TEP status reinforces that a person provides a high level of expertise and knowledge, whilst acting with the utmost integrity.

We very much value an association with STEP and have been a Financial Advisor Team of the Year finalist for the last five years, at the STEP Private Client Awards.
‍

Will Writers

It is vitality important that clients have a will in place which reflects their current circumstances; as such, if this is not the case, we will advise them to get a will written as soon as possible.

If the client has an existing solicitor, we may refer them back to them; however, there are scenarios where a specialist will writer is the better option and we have a panel of trusted will writers in place that we can refer clients to.

Mortgage Brokers

We are whole of market financial advisers; we do not have specialism in mortgages. As such, we have a panel of trusted mortgages brokers that we can refer clients to.

In turn, we find that mortgage brokers refer clients to us to fulfil their protection, investment, retirement and estate planning needs.

Higher Education

One of our advisers, Robin Bone, is a Senior Lecturer in Financial Services FHEA, and a programme leader for the Banking and Financial Planning Degree at the University of Northampton.

He works with other Chartered Financial Planners and lecturers at the University to deliver a programme which reflects the needs of modern financial planning firms.

Structured courses and qualifications in finance can provide a very good industry foundation, which can then be further improved with on the job experience. Gracechurch Wealth Management LLP has an internal academy, which can help mould people into adviser or paraplanning roles.