Our Fees

Our fees are transparent and are always agreed in advance of any work taking place.

Full details are provided to you at the start of our relationship in our Terms of Business document.

Lump sum advice (investment of new funds or transfer of existing funds)

Initial fee – we charge a minimum of £1000.

This covers the initial advice including information gathering, research & analysis, recommendation report and implementation. The fee is based on the amount to be invested or transferred. 

 

Cumulative bandings

Investment AmountFee
£0-£250,000 2%
£250,000 - £1million1%
£1 million+0.5%

Example, lump sum investment of £400,000:

£0-£250,000 @ 2% =£5,000.00
£250,000 - £400,00 @ 1% =£1,500.00
Total = £6,500

Hourly Rates

Where the work is outside of our standard services proposition (typically for advice not involving the investment or transfer of a lump sum), we will work on the following hourly rates. This charging structure is instigated at our option where you have complex pension arrangements, investment in non-mainstream products or complex, tax or trust requirements to consider.

We will agree on a fixed amount or a limit, above which, we will contact you for further instructions based on these rates. 

Examples of what you might pay

A typical project can take in total roughly 10 hours of work:

  • 2 hours of Administration = £160
  • 4 hours of para-planning = £480
  • 4 hours of technical work & advice = £1000 
  • Total = £1640

For non-advised services, if the commission is available to us, you can choose to pay us by allowing us to keep the commission, or by paying us an adviser charge instead. If you choose to pay via commission, we will tell you how much we are paid.

Ongoing Advice Fees

This covers our Ongoing Advisory Service which includes an annual review meeting to ensure your planning remains on track and additional support as may be required. Minimum £900 p.a. 

Based on total funds under management (FUM) totalOngoing fee %
£100,000 - £250,0000.9%
£250,000 - £500,0000.8%
£500,000 - £1million0.7%
£1million - £2million0.6%
£2million +0.5%

Example: £400,000 under management

£400,000 x 0.8% = £3,200 pa

You can learn more about our Ongoing Advice Service here. 

FAQs

Do I have to pay for an initial meeting?

No. There is no charge for an initial meeting. The meeting is to understand your objectives and to explain how our service works. There is no obligation to proceed. 

Our minimum fee is £1000. Advice is always given in writing in your personal recommendation report after completing a Fact Find and undertaking research and analysis.

We set our fees based on our experience of how long we spend providing our service and we have analysed the fees charged by other firms to ensure we offer fair value. Our ongoing advice services are tiered downwards depending on the amount invested rather than a single percentage, making our fees competitive and fair. 

Usually all fees are paid to us by deduction from your investments by the provider. We also offer the option of paying us directly rather than via your investments.

For retail investment products, commission was banned under RDR rules on December 31 2012. Our fees for advising on these products are the same for all providers, removing potential bias. 

For protection products such as life insurance, income protection and critical illness cover, commission is paid to us by the provider. The amount is fully disclosed in your recommendation report.

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About you

You may be retired, approaching retirement or simply planning for the next chapters of your life. You may just like to make the most of your savings/investments, are considering protection and estate planning. 

Get in touch

John Chadwick

Founder and Financial Advisor

John launched Blackwood Financial Planning Ltd in 2026 with the objective of building a team of advisers and support staff to provide financial advice to individuals throughout the UK. We are called Blackwood because John lives in North Wales his house name is Coed Duon which is Welsh for Blackwood!

John started his career teaching Physics and Maths in Oxford and although he moved into a business role after two years of teaching, he realised that even though people may lack confidence and knowledge in a subject, they can learn complex ideas with the right support.

Ever since moving to the role of financial adviser John has been passionate about financial education in the workplace. He believes in equipping people with knowledge of financial matters so they can make informed decisions to help them plan.

John has 35 years’ experience as a regulated financial adviser and achieved the qualification status of Fellow of the Personal Finance Society. Alongside his Financial Adviser role with Blackwood Financial Planning, John launched Planned Future Wellbeing in 2014 and since then they have delivered hundreds of personal finance training events to employees of Universities, Civil Service Departments, Local Authorities and the Private Sector.

John is a (long suffering!) Man Utd supporter and in his spare time he enjoys motor homing in the UK and Europe.