Solicitor's financial qualification

Seriously: you probably need to talk to an IFA, rather than a solicitor about this. Solicitors do law, and can advise on how to set up trusts (you may well need a new one), and how to word wills, and so forth, to minimise your liabilities. But a good IFA should be able to advise on how to invest the money afterwards.

A fee-paid IFA would be a better choice than a commission-paid one: even though it'll cost you more at the outset, you'll know the advice is (relatively) unbiased; (some) commission-based IFAs are notorious for bad recommendations that maximise their incomes.

And if you lose badly from an IFA's reccos, you stand a chance of making a claim against them for malpractice: I don't know if that's true of you got the reccos from a solicitor, since investment advice isn't their core skill.

Jon

Can the non solicitor IFA give authorised advice on whether the trust allows such an action, in what circumstances and under what conditions ?

No.

Why is a solicitor from the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) or Solicitor IFAs less suitable ?

Solicitors are covered for financial advice where they have the specific financial qualifications.

If Jake selects an IFA, ask if they have the G10 qualification.

Daytona

Just asked my missus - who is a judge but probably knows something about law, you need a trust equity solictor who is quite a rare bird. Apparently all solictors do an accountancy exam as part of their course.

hope this helps a bit

What do you mean by "authorised advice"? Perhaps you mean "qualified advice". I'll assume so.

Depends upon whether the IFA in question has a trusts specialism, of course. Certainly, though, a solicitor ought to be involved, to settle the trusts, contracts, etc. side of thing, but yer average one isn't the right person to ask for investment advice, which was part of the question.

The STEP solicitor would be ideal to ask about the trusts elements. Mind you, if the trust's straightforward, most decent solicitors could handle it.

Hadn't heard of SIFAs before; thanks for the info. Probably a tad expensive, though. Also, if a SIFA isn't performing as you'd like, you can't sack the "solicitor" or the "IFA" half that's not pulling its weight.

I'd be more inclined to have one of each, personally. I'm not convinced that, once the trusts legalities are settled, there's any need for a solicitor's role in handling the strictly investment issues, and I'd want a continuing relationship with the IFA without having a solicitor as their conjoined twin...

Jon

In message , Daytona writes

They best way is to ask a G10 qualified and experienced IFA to work together with a STEP qualified and suitable experienced solicitor. Neither knows it all, but each will know a lot about their own respective bit.

OK. Many thanks - to everyone.

Jake