Quotation Documents to Return to Us

Video explains the three main documents that you usually need to sign and return when we have issued you a quotation and you wish to use our services.  There are sometimes additional documents.

1. Fee Quotation
2. Client Agreement Signature Page
3. Agency Authority Letters (permission for us to speak to pension/investment companies)
4. Additional Documents (sometimes needed) HMRC, Self Assessment, Social Security, State Pension Forecasts.

Transcript:

“Hello again, the subject for today's video is quotations and what documentation to return to us where we’ve sent you a formal quotation.

So if I just talk through the basic stages of quotations with ourselves initially:

1. When you first contact us, no charge, no obligation, we will talk to you about your position. We will talk with you about your needs, your circumstances, your requirements. We will then offer some basic solutions as to what we perhaps think is your best course of action and then what we will also do is email you our fee scale so that you know exactly, right at the start, exactly what our fee structure is and how we charge.

2. Moving onto the second stage, if you are then happy with that, we will then email you security locked documents, for you to print off [at] your end and to read them, to then sign them and to return them assuming you wish to use our services.

3. Now, what are the documents to return? The documents to return to us, and this will be usually, usually, it will be:

i) the fee agreement, which specifically will state the costs of the advice or service that we’re offering, you then need to ‘tick’ the box to say: ‘I would like my service on a face-to-face or non-face-to-face basis or paid upfront or paid when the job is completed and the various discounts, depending upon what combination of service you use. Then you need to ‘tick’ a secondary box in the quotation which that will say whether you want us to be paid by [you know] effectively, direct from your bank account by invoice or upfront or alternatively, if there is an option to frat the to be paid from the policy itself, from investments or pensions themselves then you can ‘tick’ that option alternatively. On the reverse of that quotation you will then need to sign it and date it.
ii) the second document is the signature page of our client agreement. What I would say with that is: our client agreement signature page also allows for choosing an ongoing advisory service with us. Now it may be, at this early stage, you're not sure whether you want, need or require ongoing advice from us. If that's the case, which I would suggest for most people is probably the right approach, I would put a line through that box with our ongoing services and just literally write: “to be decided”. You will still need to return that document so sign it and date it again.
iii) the third set of documents that we usually request are agency authority letters. An agency authority letter is where you give us written permission to talk to your pensions or investment company, mortgage company or life insurance company or bank or whatever it might be. We don't have power over your investments or pensions. We can't access those funds. It’s only information it’s only an authority letter for them to talk to us and give information. Nothing can ever happen to your pensions or investments without your subsequent authority to change them or move them or transfer them or whatever it might be. When returning those three core documents, so we’ve covered so far: the quotation, we’ve covered the client agreement signature page and then we’ve covered the agency authority letters; we need a separate agency authority letter for each pension or investment. So, for example, if you have 3 pension schemes and 3 different investments that you've asked us to review as part of our initial review service, we would need 6 separate agency authority letters because six different companies = six different authority letters.
iv) There maybe sometimes if we are doing tax work for you, there may also be HMRC agency authority letters. Because we are an agent [registered] with HMRC, we file tax returns for our clients and there may then also be additional letters. For e.g. HMRC or the Social Security office where we ask you to sign for, to register, for self-assessment or to get state pension forecasts or whatever it might be.

So, in summary, after we’ve quoted you and you’ve said: “yes please, I now want to go ahead”, there are essentially three core documents to return:
1. is the quotation itself completed
2. is our terms of business client signature page, usually with a line through on the different services to say: “to be decided” and then
3. is agency authority letters and don't forget one for each separate pension or investment company and then finally
4. we may, if need be, ask you to return a couple of additional forms such as authority letters to talk to HMRC or to register for self-assessment or whatever it might be.

[So] those are the documents that you need to return to us when you decide to use our services. [So] we will email them to you or post them to you if that's our agreed way of dealing with you. So we will email or we will post them to you, you read sign and return and away we go. Thanks very much for watching.”