How does one find a good financial adviser?

Recommendation; if none available, try www.unbiased.co.uk. I can recommend you one I work with, but he's based in Somerset, so unless you'd like to work over phone and email, might not be the way you want to go.

WRT Trusts, please get some decent advice on this - I have a few clients with Trusts, and almost unreservedly they're looking like less of a good idea. Speak to your IFA, who may suggest you see an acountant and lawyer.

I found ours through friend recommendations, He works as part of this bigger company....and he is really excellent!

? me! ?

www.unbiased.co.uk if you go on here and put in your area etc you can find advisers that specialise in what yoou want to discuss.

We get most of our work through recommendations/word of mouth so if you know anyone local that has used one that might be an idea to speak to them.

Carrie out of interest why are trusts not such a good idea?

Thanks very much. I only know of one person who's used one so may go with theirs as recommendation would be my preferred route too. What about the commission/fee issue?

Re: Trusts, IME they end up being set up as a tax reduction vehicle (particularly wrt inheritance tax), only to give rise to quite a lot of tax, when a gift may be a much more sensible option. But as ever, it's a complex area of tax, so needs someone who has a full understanding of your tax issues to fully advise.

Carrie74 - what I was thinkng of was an arrangement so that if we died and H's sister brought up our children, that the money would be held in trust for the children but with his sister being able to use it for their living expenses etc - bringing up two extra children is expensive. Presumably we'd need a trust for that? Or would something else do the trick?

JM, yes you would need a trust but you don't need to set it up now. All you need is to make sure that what you want goes into your will (eg that X will hold the money on trust for your children in equal shares, with the income being used for blah and the capital only for blah, until they reach 21)- the trust is then set up if you die.

Do you have a will? If so, I'd just have it amended to include what you want- it's quite standard so your solicitor should be able to do it very cheaply.

Thanks Knownowt - that's really useful to know (and muc cheaper than doing it now, especially as I'm not planning on us both dying any time soon). We need to get wills sorted out - I have one but it's probably invalid now as it's under Jersey law and I'm no longer domiciled there, plus it doesn't deal with real estate or children.