Since the very beginning, Harmer Financial Services has firmly believed that choosing the right financial adviser is one of the most important decisions you will make. At Harmer Financial Services we provide high-quality, professional financial planning with clearly defined service levels and a transparent fee structure.

Our core values ensure we act with the utmost degree of integrity and professionalism at all times. We are open and ethical in everything we do, putting our clients’ best interests at the heart of our business. By using Harmer Financial Services you can be sure that your collective financial needs can be regularly reviewed and discussed, if required, in an ever-changing financial climate.

As a result, we see our role as the core adviser to our clients, coordinating the completion of your financial ‘jigsaw’, and drawing in other professionals as and when appropriate.

Our overriding aim is to give you financial peace of mind, that not only have your finances been carefully arranged to meet your current circumstances, but will continue to be looked after with you for the foreseeable future so they also meet your future circumstances. You can then enjoy life, safe in the knowledge that what has been entrusted to us is being carefully looked after on your behalf.

• Financial protection life assurance
• Income protection
• Protection against critical illness
• Retirement and pension planning
• Investing for capital growth or income
• School fees planning
• Tax planning and mitigation*
• Inheritance and succession planning
• Long-term care
• Releasing property value through equity release

• Pension schemes
• Group income protection
• Group death-in-service and dependants benefit schemes
• Partnership and directors share protection
• Key person business protection
• Advice for your employees if required

*The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) does not regulate all of these products and services

The Financial Ombudsman Service is available to sort out individual complaints that clients and financial services businesses aren’t able to resolve themselves. To contact the Financial Ombudsman Service please visit www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

By clicking on the above links you will be departing from the regulatory site of Harmer Financial Services Limited. Harmer Financial Services Limited is not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained within the linked site.

Typically, many of our clients may want to invest money on a regular basis to build up a capital sum for the future. You might be planning for your retirement, looking to generate investment income to top up your pension, saving for a deposit to buy a property or buy a holiday home, providing for school fees, or simply creating a nest egg for the future.

Harmer Financial Services provide solutions for the diverse needs of our clients, enabling each individual to structure their finances as efficiently as possible. There are many different ways to grow your wealth: from ensuring you receive the best rates for short-term cash management, to a more complex undertaking of creating an investment portfolio to grow your wealth for the long term.

Harmer Financial Services can help you make informed decisions about the investment choices that are right for you by assessing your life priorities, goals and attitude towards risk for return. Any number of changing circumstances could cause your wealth to diminish, some inevitable and some unpredictable – new taxes and legislation, volatile markets, inflation, and changes in your personal life. Structuring your wealth in a way that minimises the impact of these changes is essential.

The value of investments and the income derived from them may go down as well as up, and you may not get back the amount originally invested.

The individual and group pensions market is an ever-changing world, especially with the introduction of the pensions freedom legislation in 2015, and it can be difficult to keep track of what options are available with regards to your retirement planning.

Harmer Financial Services work with you to consider all the options, based on your needs and risk appetite. As part of the financial planning process, it is our job to blend the savings vehicles that will yield the most efficient cash flow in retirement.

Planning for your retirement is possibly the most important financial decision you will ever make. With life expectancy increasing year on year, we are now seeing the potential to spend almost as many years enjoying retirement as we have spent saving for it. Planning for it correctly will provide you with the standard of living you wish after you stop work.

Forward planning for your retirement can mean having the reassurance of financial security in later years, rather than the worry of wondering how you will cope. A comfortable lifestyle in retirement is something to which we all aspire, and increasing longevity means that we all need to make extra provision for that retirement.

Wealth and personal financial protection are an essential must-have to secure the future for both you and your family if an unexpected life event happens. The security and opportunity your wealth brings can be protected for generations, but there are many things to consider. Inheritance Tax, premature death, illness and loss of income to name but a few all need to be considered in an effective wealth protection planning strategy.

The subject of wealth protection can be an emotional and complex matter. By making use of lifetime planning opportunities and tailor-making Wills and trusts to your particular circumstances, you can ensure that your valuable assets are retained for future generations in the most financially prudent and effective way.

At Harmer Financial Services we believe the preservation and constructive transfer of wealth are primary components of a successful wealth protection strategy. While assets can grow over a lifetime, so can the need to consider a variety of products and services to protect wealth for the future. A forward-looking and integrated wealth protection strategy will help ensure a lasting legacy for you and your loved ones.

With numerous options available when structuring and preserving your assets, with our advice you can be confident of making the right decisions based on your financial and family situation to best meet your personal objectives

Harmer Financial Services are on hand to sit down with you and discuss all your requirements and needs – advice that may prove invaluable when protecting the important things in your life.

We can help you deal with the ‘what ifs’ in life such as illness, injury or even death. By thinking about these things now, you can plan ahead and gain peace of mind that you and your family will be looked after financially.

You will always know our fees before you make a decision to proceed. We do not hide our costs and we have a transparent charging structure, so you can be sure we are working efficiently for your benefit.

Our fees are based wholly upon the provision of our qualified and professional expertise, the time taken to analyse your circumstances and devise an appropriate strategy going forward, the design of an appropriate summary report to communicate this strategy to you, and also takes into account our firm’s exposure to regulatory, commercial and financial risk.

The services we will provide will normally involve us entering into a comprehensive financial planning process with you.

There are two types of fees for advice provided to clients – they are charged separately and either or both may apply to the services sought.

The first is a one-off initial fee, which would arise when we have been instructed to provide advice into a particular situation, for example, a client wishing to commence drawing from their pension, and wishing for advice on the most appropriate way to achieve this in their circumstances.

The second is our ongoing review service charge – this relates to clients wishing to have their investments or accounts managed on their behalf, to ensure continued appropriateness over time within their assessed risk profile, and with access to our professional knowledge during the course of the year.

Either of the above two services and the fees relating to them are always agreed in writing and in advance of any work being undertaken.  For peace of mind we can therefore confirm that no client of our company has ever or will ever find themselves in a position of a fee that they had not already agreed to.

• Access to a highly qualified professional adviser throughout the course of the year
• The offer of a face to face, online, or telephone review meeting at least annually which we will contact you to arrange. The review will include:

• • A review of your attitude to risk to identify changes in your profile and to confirm the ongoing appropriateness of your portfolio against your attitude to risk.
  • A review of your investment performance against your objectives and circumstances.
  • The ability to make planned adjustments appropriate to changes in your circumstances
• Ongoing risk management
• Ongoing tailoring of your specific financial goals and objectives
• Use of the client portal, including access to relevant scanned documents and other electronically formatted documents
• Access to annual tax reports required for Self-Assessment tax return purposes
• Access to adviser-advised investment opportunities and third-party specialist portfolios
• Semi-annual valuations

Specific details of what is included are provided in our Client Fee Agreement. The ongoing service charges are specific to individual circumstances and requirements.

There may be other costs, including taxes, that are payable through other parties (such as the product provider) that we may not be party to. Such charges are normally disclosed in relevant third party documentation, for example, a Key Features Document.

We reserve the right to implement time charges for additional work, at the hourly rate applicable at that time. We also reserve the right to offer tailored charging structures where it is deemed appropriate.

A full summary of our charges can be found within our Service Charter and Client Agreement, copies of which can be requested.

For all other non-investment based financial planning advice, such as life assurance or other forms of protection insurance, we offer a charging structure with a choice of fees and/or commission. For those choosing a fee-based option, we will always present you with a personalised quote before undertaking any work that might be charged for. Where we are paid by commission we will tell you the amount before we carry out any business for you. Although you may pay nothing to us upfront that does not mean that our service is free. You still pay us indirectly through deductions from the amount you pay into your product.

Where recommendations are not taken up our company reserves the right to charge an administration fee to cover the professional time costs incurred for the advice sought.

• Direct payment;
• Facilitated payment to us by the product provider, or platform provider;
• Any combination of the above;
• Trail commission offset where trail commission is being paid

• Direct payment by way of an agreed fee; or
• Commission

We will not take action to implement any of these methods until we have agreed with you on how our adviser charges are to be settled.

In the event that you choose to pay by trail commission and/or we are entitled to receive a commission for non-advised transactions or for certain business transacted or advised on prior to 31 December 2012, we shall tell you periodically the amount of commission that is paid to us by product providers and other institutions with whom investments or policies are made. The amount of trail commission we receive will vary depending on the amount invested or the policy set up.

Although you may have physically paid nothing to us up front that does not mean our service is free. You still pay us indirectly through product charges. Product charges pay for the product provider’s own costs and any trail commission. These charges can reduce the amount left for investment, however if you buy direct, the product charges could be the same, higher or lower, as when buying through an adviser.