Do you have to be

Do you have to be wealthy to benefit from talking to a financial advisor? “It’s a misconception that you have to be a wealthy expat in France to benefit from talking to a financial advisor” says Jennie Poate, financial manager of Beacon Global Wealth. “Often people think that if they don’t have a lot of assets, then a financial planner can’t help them. But, they could be really missing out on making the most of the assets they do have and how to plan for their future.” Case History Philip and Julie were a typical British couple who planned to move to France for a less stressful life. They wanted to achieve semi-retirement whilst running their B&B near Le Mans in the Pays de la Loire. They had never used a Financial Adviser in the UK but had accumulated personal pensions and an amount of money left over from their UK house sale. They asked Jennie how she could help them and we followed their story. Did you consider that you weren’t wealthy enough to warrant the services of a financial advisor? We really didn’t know what our assets were worth. We had an ISA here, a pension there, savings accounts dotted about that we hadn’t touched for some time, and the funds from our house sale. Moving to France was a big step and it did cross our minds that we might need advice. We didn’t have a known financial advisor to turn to because we didn’t consider ourselves rich enough quite frankly! How did you end up using a financial adviser in France? The concerns we had about our finances came to a head when we actually made the move to France. Experiencing a new tax environment, unsure of whether our assets would have to remain in Sterling or be converted to Euros - it was confusing, and we needed advice! We were lucky enough to be introduced to Jennie by a contact we made shortly after we arrived in France who had highly recommended her services. We met with her in our new house. Jennie could tell that we needed to feel comfortable with her and worked with us at our pace. This was so important to us, we needed to be completely confident that our advisor had our best interests at heart, we have worked really hard to be in this position and we felt that Jennie understood that.