Justin Modray, head of communications at Bestinvest

Justin started his IFA career at Chase de Vere Investments in 1995. Following six years at Chase de Vere, he took a couple of year’s break from financial services, during which time he worked in Switzerland. On returning to the UK in 2003 he joined Bestinvest, where he works as an investment specialist. Justin regularly provides expert investment commentary to the national press, radio and television.

About Bestinvest:
Bestinvest has a simple but highly effective approach. The essence is that we have aligned our interests with those of our clients and by doing so we have eliminated the conflicts of interest that are still widespread within the financial services industry.

Our remuneration structure helps to achieve this. Typically, we do not receive any commission from investment transactions, our income is derived mainly from the value of clients' investments. In that way we avoid the potential conflict of interest that can affect the impartiality of advice. We only prosper if clients remain with us and the value of their investments grows. In the case of financial planning our advice is entirely fee based.

The foundation of our investment advice is independent research. Our own research analysts carry out hundreds of face to face meetings with fund managers each year. Our job is to look beneath the marketing hype and separate the sheep from the goats. As an endorsement of our research capability, we're proud to say that many other financial advisers pay a fee to gain access to the same recommendations that we make to our clients.

We think that impartial, personalised advice, backed by thorough independent research is a pretty powerful offering in itself, but we go one step further in offering it at discount prices. In fact we typically discount all of the initial commission on Funds and ISAs and negotiate further discounts with the managers. We agree that the cost of investing in the UK has been too high and we're happy to use the benefits of our purchasing power and operating efficiency to drive down costs for our clients.

To find out more visit www.bestinvest.co.uk.

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Q&A forum

Downsizing option 25 July 2008 [0 comments]

We have lived in our very large house in a very small village for nearly 25 years, where we have built a life and are very happy. The house now has a very high value in financial terms.
However, we are now looking at the prospect of having to make a downsize move, mostly because of the financial implications of owning a house of this size, such as higher heating bills, council tax, insurance and other essential expenditure.
We have looked into the area of equity release schemes but have constantly been told that it is more cost effective to downsize to a smaller property. However, even if we did downsize to such a property, it would still be of a high value in this area.
Additionally, it would be very expensive to make this move, considering the potential costs involved in moving home. We have calculated that it will cost us close to £100,000 to move, taking into account estate agent fees, legal fees, stamp duty and various moving costs. This £100,000 is immediately wasted and, on a personal note, we would have to start a new life in our retirement.
These factors therefore bring us back to equity release. We would require an additional income of up to £20,000 per annum for possibly a ten-year period before we need to move. If the calculation was for a property valued at £1.5 million, we would only need an increase in the property value of around two per cent a year to cover the withdrawal of £20,000 for income and the interest payments. Would this be the preferable solution in investment terms for our situation, rather than taking the money out of the property by downsizing, especially in view of the current outlook for house prices, and then investing the funds elsewhere and paying more tax on the funds we have released?
G Boot, Kent