Before we begin any discussion, let us be quite clear – both property and pensions can deliver long-term growth, both can be used to fund retirement, and both can play an important role in savings. In the UK, property has long been seen as a good investment, with house prices beating inflation by 3% per…
Making a gift to your family and friends while you are alive can be a good way to reduce the value of your estate for Inheritance Tax purposes, ensuring those closest to you benefit from a lifetime of your hard work. Estate and tax planning is a complex area and professional financial advice can help…
There are many reasons to look at so-called “get rich schemes” during the current climate. We are only just coming out of a national lockdown and the future of the UK economy looks bleak with short-term inflation and recession fears to name but a few. Many people have had more time on their hands, and…
The Spring Budget announced that the Pension Life Time Allowance (LTA) would be frozen until at least April 2026 at £1,073,100. Previously, the LTA increased at the target rate of 2.5% however last year due to the low inflationary environment, it only went up by 0.5%. A prolonged period with no inflationary increases will mean…
One of the most fundamental risks in retirement is longevity, the risk of running out of money before running out of life. Whilst there are a lot of benefits to living a long time, longevity undoubtedly increases financial risk. So just how long will your retirement plan need to generate income? Most people underestimate their life expectancy, often significantly. A man who is 65 years…
A client once remarked that it would be good if we had a crystal ball for their finances. A good point well made, so we went and bought one from Amazon, which still sits on a windowsill in the office. It looks good but has never proved to be entirely reliable. Cashflow forecasting, on the…
Each year around 25,000 estates in the UK have to pay Inheritance Tax (IHT), but a further 250,000 also have to jump through onerous and time-consuming hoops to establish that they do not. The job of gathering every last detail of a friend or relative’s financial affairs, requiring as many as 25 different forms to be completed, is a real labour of love. However,…
The pandemic has been a very difficult time for everyone, and one of the fallouts is going to be an increased divorce rate as many people re-evaluate their lives. Even Bill Gates, once the world’s richest man, said that he and his wife Melinda were not going to be able to grow old together. Indeed,…
It is a sombre thought to think about what happens to your family once you are gone, or what happens should your spouse pass away prematurely. However, with increasing life expectancy, many more are shunning widowhood and are instead searching for a new partner with which to enjoy a later-life romance. Marriage rates for over-65s…
You might have read in the news a couple of weeks ago that between 800 and 1,500 businesses around the world were affected by a ransomware attack centred on US IT firm Kaseya, a company that provides software tools to IT outsourcing shops. The most notable disruption occurred in Sweden, where hundreds of Co-Op supermarkets had…
