People like me
by Doug Brodie
In this blog:
/1. Client case studies
/2. Our mission
/1. Client case studies
(Each person below has a demo pic of themselves beside their story)
Alec is 57 and about to put his ducks in a row to be able to step back from work bang on 60. He is a partner in a law firm with one main pension, several small ones from years back and five years’ worth of final salary pension from when he trained with one of the ‘Bigs’ post-uni.
He has also diligently squirrelled away savings into ISAs. Alec wants to know how to give his kids a leg up on the property ladder…or if he should help with the student loans. He hasn’t a clue about how to invest his SIPP for income, and knows he can’t afford to get that wrong. He also wonders if he can or should make up any unused pension allowances before retiring, and how the lifetime allowance impacts him.
£125,000 partnership earnings
£160,000 in ISAs
£450k in SIPP, other pensions around £40k
Deferred final salary scheme currently £7,000 pa
Photo by Filip Rankovic Grobgaard on Unsplash
Jill says she’s happily divorced. Now 56, for the first time in her adult life she has sole control of her income and capital. Her three kids are (almost) financially independent, she has a smart home counties house, a pension share from her ex, and a seven-figure sum sitting with the ex’s stockbroker – invested, but she hasn’t a clue in what, or why or what she should be expecting. The first thing she wants to know is how much monthly income she needs; the second thing is where & how that income is generated.
£600k pension from ex
£1.5m+ in discretionary portfolio
£130k in cash deposits
Partial NI record from work before stopping to raise the family
Expected inheritance in (perhaps?) 10, 15 years
Has never made investment decisions, very keen to learn
Photo by Lukas Godina on Unsplash
Sally is 60, was widowed 20 years ago and has spent the time in between bringing up her two kids, now both safely through education – one via university, the other via a woodworking diploma & apprenticeship. Her late husband’s employer’s death benefits have pretty much finished now the kids are out of education, her main source of income is from the portfolio she and her sister inherited from their Dad. She wants to ring fence her income pot so she can see what can be given to the kids now, and what will be available for weddings, new car etc. Primarily she knows she has to feel secure in her investment income.
£660,000 in mixed investment account
£120,000 in ISA
£18,000 in cash reserve
Deferred teacher's pension scheme that she left 20 years ago
Not a jot of experience or interest in investments or markets
Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash
Sam’s life has always been eventful, and the commercial success he’s had is not quite reflected in his financial position at 66 due to two divorces (he’s married again). Fortunately, in his business sector final salary schemes abounded so he now has around £50k guaranteed income plus another £9k pa in state pension. Sam still has teenager family responsibilities and he’s exasperated by what the markets have done to the large shareholdings he holds in former employers – via bonus scheme allocations.
£60k pa in inflation proofed pensions
£380k in invested ISAs
£1,140k in invested SIPP
£900k in shares of two previous employers
No interest in how investments work, as long as he understands what he holds and why
Eloise has created a successful business, bought and sold several times, and now has significant assets. She describes herself as ‘asset rich, income nervous’ because for the first time in her adult career she knows she needs to hire in expertise she doesn’t have, to make sure her monthly income is as needed. At 58 she still has three NED roles, her elderly father lives with her as does her youngest daughter – both of whom have special needs and will never be independent. Her country estate is straight out of Country Life, deer included.
Eloise knows her elderly father’s will but doesn’t want/need to inherit from him; she has high outgoings because now she wants to enjoy her animals and her land (that size we couldn’t really call it a garden). She needs to know her daughter will have the income she needs for life, she frets about IHT given she’s built her wealth on her own.
£5.4m in deposit accounts
£1.9m in SIPP with enhanced protection
Full state pension due
£4.5m London apartment, £7m Hampshire waterside estate
An art collection in both homes insured at £4m, jewellery at £2m.
£65k income from property lets
£145k NED income
Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash
Thomas is 48 and panicking because he’s never taken pensions seriously – ‘they’re for old people, I’ll never be old’. He runs the creative division of a conglomerate, doesn’t trust everything he’s read about the stock market and has no idea how to trust in the guidance from another person.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Thomas was married many moons ago, then split from his wife though never divorced. Amicable all round he has now lived with Mateo for around fifteen years. He has three buy to let flats which he’s had for many moons – he’s happy with the capital gains but is unhappily an expert in rental voids, building repairs on Sunday afternoons, and untrustworthy tenants. He wants to provide for his daughter at university – the idea of student debt is anathema to him - plus his daughter is the one badgering him to take advice to get his post-work life sorted out.
£220,000 in various pensions, can now set aside £1k per month
£328k in a deposit account
£78k in income from work, £36k from buy to lets
Around £800k in equity in his buy to lets
A smart & diligent daughter who wants to be an architect
A partner with €250,000 savings in Spain plus a finca in the Andalusian hills
Angus and Christine are in their mid-70s and would always be regarded as comfortably off. They split their year between France and Scotland where they have homes; with legal and accounting backgrounds between them, their entire life has been one of financial competence, both of them managing their own investment accounts on a leading consumer platform. Christine receives dividends from a family company, founded in Perthshire by her great-grandfather, owned exclusively by her and her brothers.
Their three children are all in their early 40s and are concerned about the obvious anxiety they see in their parents when the markets wobble – which has happened a lot recently. It's hard to talk to parents about their money, heaven forbid the children might even criticise what’s happening. Angus is concerned about how much income Christine will have when he dies, Christine worries about how much care might cost if she is not able to look after both of them. Both are worried that they won’t be able to leave their children enough when they die. (What they don’t recognise is that the youngest daughter’s permanent jeans and laptop wardrobe is not because she ‘can’t find a good job’, but is because she is a leading cyber security analyst with share options in her employer worth over $3m).
Homes £1.6m and €500k
ISAs combined £425k
SIPPs combined £1.2m
Family company dividends £62k per year
Premiums bonds, £40k
Cash savings £270k, €30k
/2. Our mission
Chancery Lane is the reference website for income investing for people with portfolios from £250k and up, it’s the shop window for our clients.
Whereas you find lots of websites talking ‘about’ advice, and ‘The 10 Things You Must Do with your Pension’ and ‘read our advice website’ (that doesn’t actually give advice but sells advertising), this company was originally sketched out by me (Doug), a real live chartered financial planner, and I have been personally advising clients about their finances, face to face, since May 10th 1989 (and Simon, that client, is still with me).
We are specialists in income investing, we do this all day every day and our people have done so for years. We are independent, we don’t peddle our own products so we can use the best available investments and products for our clients.
We are like you, the team is made up of experienced and expert 50 and 60 year-olds – we understand our clients because we are our clients. Our board consists of people who have retired and wanted to help because they recognised the gap in the market where a call centre won’t do, and where expertise and empathy are the key ingredients.
Our mission is to help consumers live better lives with financial freedom in retirement, by enabling them to make better choices with pensions and investments. The final salary pensions our parents had have all but gone and pension companies expect today’s retirees to become ‘trainee investment gurus’ overnight? We’re here to fix that problem.
Investment markets go up and down, yet that is where the best long term returns are found – our role is not to defy the markets but to explain them, and provide the roadmap needed.
Our team have worked with thousands of retirees over the past decades, we know that ‘ohmygodwhatisourmonthlyincomethisyear’ is no one’s idea of what retirement is supposed to be, so we show clients how to organise the pension income so that it fades into the background of your life, boringly reliable.
We aim to build trust with the community of baby boomers, so let us know if we’ve missed something out, or not made something clear. It’s not just about the money, so we use our own experience to talk to you about aged parents, dealing with dementia, IHT and kids.
Our website should feel personal to you because it has been designed by your own age group; to us, the money side is generally straightforward, in the same way that knitting looks complex and confusing to me, but to those who’ve knitted for years it is undemanding.
Doug