Terms Of Business

We can act for you if you live in the UK. There may be restrictions on how we can advise you if any of the following apply:

• You don’t live in the UK
• You are currently staying in the UK, but normally live abroad
• You are currently staying in the UK and plan to move abroad or return to another country

Please ask us for details if you think this may apply to you.

The FSA requires us to classify our clients as either ‘retail’ (personal) or ‘professional’ (business). We classify all our customers as ‘retail’ so that you get the highest level of consumer protection and in some cases, access to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

We will provide our services to you using reasonable care and skill. There may be circumstances where you ask us to provide specialist advice, which we are not allowed to give. We are not able to advise you on the following types of investments: Occupational Pension Transfers.

We will let you know if this list changes. Please ask us if you need any information about what we are able to advise you about.

We can, however refer you to someone who can advise you in areas we cannot. They may pay us a fee or some other benefit for us introducing you to them as a customer; if this happens, we will tell you in writing.

You should receive a separate agreement from them explaining what services they will provide to you; they may be other financial advisers, solicitors or accountants. Any persons to whom we refer you to will take responsibility for the advice they give to you.

We can’t give you legal advice, but we will point out and explain to you what the payments terms, exit charges, exclusions and other key terms are for any product you buy using our services.

We will communicate with you orally and in writing. We prefer our clients to give us instructions in writing to avoid possible disputes. If we accept oral instructions from you, we will confirm them in writing to you. Any advice we give you will normally be in writing, but if given orally, we will record it on our files.

We may give you advice about policies or investments, which you may (for a short period) be able to cancel. We will advise you if you have a right to cancel any policy or investment on which we have advised you.

When we advise on or arrange certain types of investment products for you, we have to make sure that we get the best possible result for you, as a personal client. We call this ‘best execution’. We will give you a copy of our best execution policy if you ask for it.

When we arrange investments for you we will register these in your name unless otherwise agreed in writing. Additionally, we will ensure you receive either a contract note, documents of title or certificates evidencing title. All such paperwork will be forwarded to you by post as soon as possible after we receive them. Where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions are involved, the documents will normally be retained until the series is complete.