Meet the client: Ian’s story

Meet the client: Ian’s story

Redundancy tax planning

Ian started working with AAB Wealth in 2016 when he took voluntary redundancy from a major oil operator in Aberdeen.  Here he chats to AAB Wealth to talk about what it was like to work with us in order to plan his financial future.

What made you seek financial advice?

The redundancy coincided with the option of early retirement after over 30 years. I had a final salary pension, but the possibility of transferring out of this was very new at the time so I wanted to gather as much professional advice as possible before making any decisions.

In addition, I was also looking at starting my own subsea consultancy business and I needed to work with a firm who could support me with that as well.

How did the process begin?

We started by looking at the bigger picture and my family situation, which meant I could actually look at how planning my finances would benefit everyone.

As well as identifying what I wanted to do overall, my financial planner Andrew also asked what my reasons were for choosing that particular route and proposed alternative options to consider.

Having a sounding board like that to run ideas past was very helpful.  He took myself and my wife through everything from retirement planning to redundancy tax planning to transferring the pension, rental property options, drafting Wills, putting in place Power of Attorneys  and inheritance tax planning. We also explored setting up a new company for my consultancy work.

What helped you to make the right decision?

Having provided us with the knowledge of the risks and opportunities involved, Andrew then used financial modelling to illustrate our future financial requirements.

He also helped us to come up with other ideas for what we wanted to do with our future. He then structured these using the modelling software so we could see how things would look. This helped us to see that our future was going to be financially secure, whichever scenario we chose.

This helped to put our minds at rest and gave us confidence in taking necessary decisions. 

What were the results?

Using AAB Wealth as our adviser has worked out really well. I’ve been able to blend taking early retirement, managing a redundancy package, starting a new company, completing overall tax planning, investing in rental property and looking ahead to the future while understanding more about our own finances.

However, I just wish we had sought this type of advice about 10 years before retirement, as advice at that time could have been even more beneficial in approaching some of these important decisions!

What did you like most about working with us?

You’re very easy to get along with and very open. This is a long-term relationship, so having a personal rapport from the start is very important. 

But as well as this personal approach, you also have the scale to put people in contact with other specialists. This means we benefitted from your connections and network.

Ultimately, you’re always there for us, we can phone up and get advice any time.

If you wish to have a no-obligation chat to one of our own trusted advisers, please contact us at advice@aabwealth.uk or 01224625111. We’d love to hear from you.