Category: Financial planning

If you’ve lent money to your children to help them with university fees, a deposit on their first home or even just to support them with the rising cost of living, then you’re not alone. Statistics suggest that around a quarter of all mortgages are now partially funded by the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’.

The popularity of investing in property to fund retirement remains prevalent, in spite of the government’s attempts to make buy-to-let less and less attractive. But is buy-to-let investment really a viable alternative to a pension pot, for example? A recent study has investigated the numbers behind each option. The research looked at how £100,000 would

The latest figures surrounding the pensions lifetime allowance (LTA), which governs how much your pensions can be worth without triggering an extra tax charge, suggest that a considerable number of middle-income earners are being hit by the lower threshold. The amount collected from pensions exceeding the LTA by HMRC during the 2015-16 tax year came to

Research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) surrounding wealth in the UK has been making headlines in recent months. The study has found that people born during the 1980s are now half as wealthy as those born in the 1970s were at the same stage in their lives. This makes children born during the

Retirement is undoubtedly the section of your life which received the largest amount of planning for most people, with much of your working life spent ensuring you can live where and how you want once you’ve retired. However, as with all plans, there are always going to be aspects of your retirement which don’t end

If you are thinking of setting up a trust fund for a family member please read the attached article published in October’s Time & Leisure magazine which sees GEM & Co’s partner Gareth Rees contributing his advice on the subject. Should you require any further information or advice on this matter then please don’t hesitate to get in

Following the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates to a record low of 0.25% at the beginning of August and the initial reaction to that from within the financial sector, the resultant effects continue to be felt over a month later.Cash savings accounts have been hit the hardest, with some banks making cuts

Following the Brexit result of the EU referendum on 23rd June, a number of property funds chose to suspend redemptions following huge amounts of withdrawals from investors. This led to many predicting a gloomy future for the funds, but as we move further on from the referendum, many are changing their predictions to one of

By and large August was a good – but unexciting – month for the major world stock markets we cover in this commentary. There were no dramatic gains – Hong Kong was the star performer with a rise of 5% – and two or three markets did their best to do nothing at all, but