Independent advice for pre-retirees and established investors across Kent, London and the South East. Investments, pensions, tax, estate and protection — looked at as one whole picture, under one team.
Independent advice for pre-retirees and established investors across Kent, London and the South East. Investments, pensions, tax, estate and protection — looked at as one whole picture, under one team.
By the time most people start thinking seriously about wealth management, they have spent two or three decades building it — pensions from previous employers, ISAs grown into something sizeable, an investment account opened years ago, perhaps an inheritance along the way. The decisions ahead — when to retire, how to draw an income, how much to gift, how to position the portfolio for the next stage — are too consequential to make on instinct. H&D is an independent wealth management firm based in Maidstone, Kent, working with clients who want their wealth looked at as a whole picture — investments, pensions, tax, estate and protection — under one team.
Wealth management is an integrated financial service for clients with substantial accumulated wealth. It brings financial planning together with tax, inheritance, retirement and protection advice — and with professionally managed investments — under one team, coordinating decisions that would otherwise be made in isolation across separate advisers, providers and products.
At H&D, wealth management is financial planning for clients whose affairs have grown more complex, bringing the planning, tax, retirement, IHT and protection work together with professionally managed investments — for clients whose wealth has tax, inheritance and timing consequences across decades.
At H&D, wealth management covers six closely related areas. Each is a discipline in its own right, and each interacts with the others — which is the whole point of coordinating them under one team.
We advise on and arrange the management of your investments across funds, ISAs, GIAs, OEICs and unit trusts. Day-to-day buying, selling and rebalancing is carried out by a specialist Discretionary Fund Manager within an agreed mandate; your assets sit on a regulated platform in your own name. We select the manager and solution, and keep it under review against your plan.
For clients within ten years of retirement, the question is how to draw an income tax-efficiently, sequence withdrawals across pots, and avoid running out — modelled alongside everything else.
Property values across Kent, London and the South East put the IHT threshold in reach for many clients. Trusts, lifetime gifting, business reliefs and pension structures all have a role.
ISAs, GIAs, pensions and the relationships between them — drawn into the same conversation, so each wrapper is used in the order that keeps the most of your money working.
Cover put in place where it is genuinely needed, so the plan holds together if circumstances change — sized to the picture rather than sold as a product.
The work that underpins every other decision — showing what the plan looks like across thirty or forty years, so the trade-offs are visible before they are made.
Financial planning is the planning discipline — building the strategy, modelling the cashflow, designing the roadmap. Wealth management is the same whole-picture approach scaled for substantial accumulated wealth, with professionally managed investments inside the plan and ongoing stewardship across all financial decisions. Most wealth management clients receive financial planning as part of the service.
| Financial planning | Wealth management | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Building the plan and the strategy | Stewarding substantial accumulated wealth |
| Investment management | Sometimes included; sometimes referred out | Included — via professionally managed portfolios (DFM/MPS) selected and overseen by H&D |
| Typical client | Anyone wanting an integrated financial plan | Clients with substantial accumulated wealth (typically £500k+) |
| Relationship | Often project-based, with optional ongoing reviews | Ongoing, active relationship across all financial decisions |
| At H&D | Whole-picture advice across our ten services | The same advice, plus access to professionally managed portfolios — recommended by H&D and reviewed as part of our ongoing service. |
In practice the line is less rigid than the table suggests. Someone who came to H&D in their forties for financial planning may need wealth management by their late fifties, when the pension is much larger and the tax and estate questions are louder. The service evolves with the wealth.
A wealth management adviser is a financial professional who advises clients with substantial accumulated wealth across the full picture of their finances. Day to day, that means understanding the client’s full situation, designing an integrated strategy, arranging and overseeing the professional management of the investments within agreed risk parameters, coordinating with tax and legal advisers, and reviewing the plan as circumstances change.
Our advisers and planners at H&D work as a team — the thinking is shared across the firm, and the relationship is with H&D as a whole, even when one named contact runs the day-to-day.
Our wealth management service is typically suited to clients with around £500,000 or more in accumulated wealth — across pensions, investments, savings and other assets. But the right point to start a conversation depends more on the complexity of your circumstances than on any one number.
We work across both, and will tell you honestly which one fits. Many clients with this level of wealth simply find the picture has grown faster than their ability to keep on top of it.
Three are about who we are. The fourth — our process — is about how we work, and follows below.
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We are part of the Loyal North Group; where a group firm is among the options we consider, we say so clearly, and any recommendation is made on its merits.
We take pride in the honesty and transparency of our offering. Our fees are agreed with you in writing before any work begins — nothing is charged that you have not seen first. The cost of wealth management depends on the complexity of your situation and the scope of the work: the size and structure of the portfolio, the planning components involved, and the level of ongoing service.
We discuss fees openly in the first conversation, before any work begins, so you know what to expect. The initial conversation is free, with no obligation to proceed.
The fourth pillar. Every wealth management client goes through the same three-step process — the structure that keeps the service to a high standard over years rather than months.
Understand your situation and goals.
A detailed fact-find covering your income, assets, liabilities, existing arrangements, family situation, and what you want the wealth to do. We assess your attitude to risk and your capacity for loss, model the cashflow across the years ahead, and map your goals against what you currently have in place.
Put the integrated plan into action.
Once we agree on a direction, we put it into action — an integrated set of recommendations across the investment portfolio, pensions, ISAs and GIAs, IHT structures, tax wrappers, and protection. We prepare the suitability documentation, manage transfers and applications, and set everything up so the moving parts work together rather than against each other.
Keep the plan on track as life and markets change.
Wealth management is an ongoing relationship, not a one-off engagement. Markets move, tax rules change, and your circumstances change. We keep the strategy under review and sit down with you formally — at least once a year — to walk through the plan, check that the portfolio and the manager remain suitable, and adjust the strategy as your life evolves.
Behind that process sits a firm with unusual continuity. The H&D name traces back to Harris & Dixon, a City of London house whose roots reach toward 1797 — a name that has moved through different trades and several centuries. What endured was never the ledger but the instinct behind it: knowing your client, holding their interests above the transaction. The advice business that carries the name today has looked after individuals and families since 1987. Read more about our heritage, or meet the team behind H&D.
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The financial decisions can wait — when you are ready, we help you make sense of them.”
Choosing a wealth manager comes down to a few specific checks. Look at whether the firm is independent — recommending across the whole market — or restricted to a narrower panel; whether the service is whole-picture (planning, tax, IHT, retirement and protection alongside investment advice) or portfolio-only; whether the firm is transparent about fees before any work begins; and whether the firm’s status is clear on the Financial Services Register (some firms are directly authorised, others act as appointed representatives of an authorised firm). For more on what to look for in any adviser, MoneyHelper’s guide to choosing a financial adviser is a useful reference.
Wealth management is delivered through a set of underlying financial products — typically ISAs, General Investment Accounts (GIAs), pensions including SIPPs, OEICs and unit trusts, and sometimes investment bonds. The portfolio is usually run on either a discretionary basis, where a discretionary manager makes day-to-day decisions within an agreed mandate, or an advisory basis, where every change is recommended and approved. The wealth manager’s job is to choose, combine and review those products in line with the client’s circumstances, attitude to risk and goals.
Estate planning is the part of wealth management that focuses on how your wealth passes to your chosen beneficiaries — and how much of it survives the journey. In practice, that means managing inheritance tax exposure, using lifetime gifting where it makes sense, structuring assets through trusts, applying business and agricultural reliefs where they qualify, and considering how pensions sit inside the estate. For clients with substantial accumulated wealth, estate planning runs in parallel with investment and retirement planning, not as a separate exercise.
Most UK wealth managers are oriented around clients with substantial accumulated wealth — often £500,000 or more in investable assets. There is no statutory minimum, and figures vary widely between firms. The more useful question is whether your situation has reached the level of complexity where integrated advice across investments, planning, tax, IHT and protection adds more value than a simpler arrangement. MoneyHelper’s beginner’s guide to investing is a useful reference if you are still building up to that stage.
Investments, pensions, tax, estate, the lot. The first conversation is on us, with no obligation to proceed — we’ll listen, ask the questions that matter, and tell you honestly whether we’re the right firm to help.
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