How do I choose a service?
The service you choose depends on your requirements and whether you are looking for a Comprehensive Review, an Overview or a “One off” advice on a particular aspect of your finances. We can help you choose the right service when we speak with you.

Are Higgins Fairbairn Advisory LLP independent?
You can be assured of completely independent advice from us. We do not work for a Bank, Insurance Company or Fund Manager. We are wholly owned by the Partners who advise you. Our advice is not biased by commission.

How safe is my money?
We recognise that our clients’ assets must be held securely and therefore we normally recommend that you hold your investments via third party investment administration services provided by large financial institutions. We do not hold client money. Naturally, some of the investments we recommend will carry investments risks but these will be fully explained to you.

How much will it cost?
The exact cost will be dependent on your circumstances, requirements and the service you choose and we will ensure you are 100% clear as to the costs before you become a client.

Why should I pay for ongoing advice?
We believe in maintaining an ongoing relationship with all of our clients. Whilst certain circumstances dictate that a ‘one-off’ fee would be appropriate, others require ongoing advice and monitoring. A simple example is in relation to investments – we do not simply recommend a fund and then forget about it, we take a pro-active approach to your holdings. This approach proved especially important during the early months of the credit crunch. We also provide quarterly valuations and as appropriate will recommend fund switches to help improve the performance of your funds.

We are also happy to quote for "one off" advice in certain circumstances. If this is your preference, please let us know.

Is the first meeting free?
Yes, the first meeting is an investment of your time and ours. It is an opportunity to have an adult discussion about mutual profitability and to agree whether to take the relationship forward or not. Your time is as valuable as ours and for this reason we do not make a charge.

What is your minimum portfolio size?
We have deliberately not imposed one. When we first set up the business, we realised that there were very few professional financial planning firms offering high quality, strategic financial planning and investment advice to individuals. As we wish to develop a multi-generational practice, an investment minimum would be counter-productive.

How is a financial planner different from a wealth manager, IFA or private banker?
There isn’t a difference, just various titles for essentially the same job. A private banker may well be able to recommend an “in house” bank account for you, which we can’t do, but other than that, all of the above should be able to give you independent financial planning and investment advice. The Chartered Financial Planner however, should be able to offer the most rounded advice and demonstrate an in-depth technical knowledge which may not be available under the other titles.

You are a relatively new organisation. Wouldn’t I be better off with a more established firm?
It is really a question of trust. We have tried to develop the business on the basis of trust and create the same ethos within the organisation.

In reality, your relationship is with your advisor and their understanding of your requirements; in that sense it doesn’t really matter when the business was founded. We aim to maintain amongst the best qualified advisers in the profession and we would hope our corporate ethics reflect our commitment to that.

How can a relatively small company expect to compete with all of the big private banks and wealth managers in terms of knowledge and information?
We maybe be small but we are agile and know exactly what kinds of information is pertinent to our clients and the services which we provide.

Firstly, we invest a significant amount of our time understanding you, what your objectives are, what your current financial position is and what your future is likely to look like. Our service is highly personalised and we do not try to pigeonhole you into a one-size-fits-all solution as many larger firms will do.

We pride ourselves on the fact that we have an extensive knowledge of all aspects of financial advice, including investments, pensions and tax planning but most importantly, are able to apply this to your individual circumstances. We believe that such skills are in very short supply.

Equally important is that we know our limitations. We acknowledge that in certain circumstances we know enough to know that we don’t know enough; therefore, if appropriate, we will seek to bring in specialists in particular fields if your circumstances require them.

In addition, it is our view is that it would make very little difference to your personal financial success if we had a highly paid team of economists and strategists trying to predict the future direction of markets or interest rates. We recommend that you read the investment section of our website for further information on this aspect of our approach.