Fernleigh Wearden & Company Ltd
Independent Financial Advisers
Four fields. That’s it.
One of our advisers will ring you back by the end of the next working day, at the time you asked for.
In a hurry? Call us on 01772 864314, 9am–5pm Monday to Friday.
For individuals
It is the question behind almost every first meeting we have. The honest answer depends on numbers most people have never actually sat down and worked out.
Overview
Most people arrive with a rough feeling that they are either fine or in trouble. Very few have a figure. Our job is to replace the feeling with the figure.
We start by finding everything you have. Old workplace schemes, personal pensions, a pot from a job in the nineties that nobody can quite locate. Then we look at what you are paying for them, because charges are the one part of an outcome you can genuinely control and what you are invested in, because a default fund chosen for you at 25 is rarely still right at 55.
From there it becomes a planning question rather than a product question. When do you want to stop? What will you actually spend? What happens if markets fall the year you retire, or if one of you needs care? We model it, we test it against the bad years as well as the good and we give you a date.
A note on final salary pensions. Fernleigh Wearden no longer advises on transfers out of defined benefit, or “gold-plated”, schemes. If you hold one we will say so plainly and point you towards a firm that holds the relevant permission. We will still happily review everything else you have.
Advice areas
Retirement advice is rarely one decision. It is usually five or six, taken in the right order.
Employed, self-employed or already retired. We review what you hold, what it costs and whether the funds still match the risk you want to take.
Left a job and left the pension behind? We trace it, compare it and tell you honestly whether moving it is worth the trouble.
A great many people begin properly in their forties or fifties. It is later than ideal but a very long way from hopeless.
Tax-free cash, drawdown, annuity, or some combination. The order you take money in changes how much tax you pay.
Public sector schemes generate annual allowance charges surprisingly often — scheme pays, input periods and carry forward all need looking at together. We will check your State Pension entitlement at the same time and whether topping up your National Insurance record is worth doing.
Your whole financial life on one chart, tested against good years and bad. See how it works.
Quick calculator
Move the sliders for a rough illustration. It uses standardised growth assumptions and deducts typical charges — it is not a forecast and it is not advice.
Your figures
Illustration only, using a 5% middle growth assumption with 2% and 8% as lower and higher scenarios, less 1.2% a year in charges, in line with the approach used for regulatory projections. These are assumptions chosen for illustration, not a forecast and not based on the past performance of any fund we recommend. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you put in. Figures ignore tax, tax relief and the State Pension.
Working with us
Nothing is committed until step five and the first two cost you nothing but time.
A chat, at our office, your home or over video. We listen, you ask questions. There is no charge and no obligation and if we can't help we'll say so.
What you have, what you owe, what you want and how you feel about risk. This is the part most people find surprisingly useful in itself.
We review your existing plans, charges and funds against the whole of the market. Being independent means nothing is off the table.
A written report in plain English setting out what we suggest, what it costs and why. You take it away and think about it.
Only once you're happy. We handle the paperwork, the providers and the chasing, which is usually the tedious bit.
If you'd like us to, we'll review everything at least once a year and tell you honestly if nothing needs changing.
Who you’d be dealing with
Mark is our Chartered Financial Planner and Fellow of the Personal Finance Society — the most qualified of the three and the adviser who generally handles more complex cases. Whoever you first speak to, we will always endeavour to keep you with them.
In their words
Fernleigh Wearden & Co have been helping me to make decisions about my finances for many years now. What I like is that they are a friendly, approachable, family business. The advice I receive is prompt, timely, individual to me and is flexible as my circumstances change. Paul and Mark are very knowledgeable, yet explain things to me in simple, clear and practical terms to enable me to make my own choices and decisions. No pressure, nothing complicated, no worries.
I received very helpful and in depth advice and service from Mark at Fernleigh Wearden & Company. He was always on hand to answer any questions I had for him. Excellent advice and I would definitely recommend him to anyone needing advice with their pensions.
Paul has always explained financial advice in the simplest ways so that I can understand and therefore can make a financial decision with confidence. Fernleigh Wearden & Company also advised me on my parent’s affairs after my mum died and lately my dad, which was done with the least fuss. Even the solicitor wanted to speak to him she was so impressed with their work.
Often relevant alongside this
Once the pension is sorted, the question is usually what to do with everything else.
Read more Often nextRetiring changes what your family would need if something happened to you.
Read more Worth readingThe first meeting is free. After that our charges are on one page, in pounds.
Read moreCommon questions
Sometimes and sometimes very much not. Older schemes occasionally carry guaranteed annuity rates or protected tax-free cash that would be lost on transfer. We check for those before anything else. If moving isn’t in your interests we will tell you, even though it earns us nothing.
Not on transferring out of one. We no longer hold that permission and we’d rather be straight with you about it than take the work. If you have a defined benefit scheme we’ll tell you what we think in general terms and point you to a firm that can advise formally.
No and you are in much bigger company than you think. Fifteen years is a meaningful run, tax relief on contributions is generous and there are usually other levers — when you stop, what you spend, whether you go part-time. It is a very different conversation from the one you are dreading.
There is no universal figure, because it depends entirely on what you spend. The useful exercise is working backwards from your actual outgoings rather than reaching for a headline number. That is what cashflow modelling is for and it is usually the moment the whole thing clicks.
It depends on the type of pension and how it is set up. Defined contribution pots can often be passed on, sometimes very tax-efficiently, but only if the paperwork is right. It is one of the most commonly overlooked things we find and one of the easiest to fix.
No. Plenty of our reviews conclude that you should stay exactly where you are. You can also pay us a fee for advice rather than have it taken from the pension — the options are set out on our costs page.
Please read this
Fernleigh Wearden no longer advises on transfers out of defined benefit, or “gold-plated”, schemes.
Both Mark and Paul are qualified in this area and able to advise on it should the firm wish to do so again. At this time the regulator starts from the position that staying in a final salary scheme is in the best interests of the majority of people and as such we have decided to put our permissions on hold to advise in this area.
If you hold a final salary pension we can provide a triage service to generically explain the details of the pension you hold and the alternative options available to you.
Should you believe that a defined benefit pension transfer is in your best interests, we will point you towards a service such as the PFS adviser search or unbiased.co.uk to find an adviser who holds the relevant permissions.
We will still happily review everything else you have.
Our services
Advice areas overlap. Part of our job is spotting which ones actually apply to you.
Tell us when suits and an adviser will ring you back. The introductory call is free.
