Terms and Conditions of Business
This document provides you with details of our services and their cost, our and your commitment and our regulator, and is our standard terms of business upon which we intend to rely. Please read this document carefully and if you do not understand any point please ask for further explanation.
We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Our regulated activities comprise arranging investments on an execution only or direct offer basis. We do not give financial advice. If you are unsure whether an investment is suitable for you, you should seek independent advice from a qualified professional. Our FSA register number is 187990.
The FSA’s contact details are:
25 The North Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HS, United Kingdom.
Tel: 0845 606 1234
We will treat you as a Retail Client unless we agree with you otherwise. Retail clients have the highest level of protections under the regulatory regime. We will communicate to you in English both verbally and in writing.
We will hold all information about you in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. In giving us personal information, you agree to us providing this information to third parties such as product providers and credit reference agencies. This is to allow us to meet with the record-keeping and regulatory requirements of the Financial Services Authority. The aim is to protect you under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. You and your agents are able to see all information we hold relating to you at any time.
We will notify you in writing of any conflict of interest that may exist between the work we are doing for you and any of our other clients or ourselves. We will tell you about the extent of any conflict of interest that exists or that may arise and if necessary make arrangements for another company to act as your agent.
We require our clients to give us instructions in writing to avoid possible disputes. We will, however, accept oral instructions if they are recorded or subsequently confirmed in writing.
You or we may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at any time, without penalty. Notice of this termination must be given in writing. Termination will not prejudice the completion of transactions already initiated on your behalf or any rights or obligations already arising.
We will process your investments on an execution only basis and offer you on-going administrative assistance. Where applicable, we will send you half-yearly fund monitoring and valuation reports and provide online services via our website to help you manage your investments. These services are funded by renewal commission which is typically 0.5% per annum and incorporated into a fund’s annual management charge.
In general, any initial commission payable is re-invested back into your investment. Where this is not possible, we will send you a rebate by way of cheque or electronic payment. Occasions may arise whereby it will be necessary to levy an initial or on-going fee for arranging an investment, for example where no commission is payable. In such circumstances, we will inform you in writing of our charges which would normally then be deducted from your investment. Where this is not possible, fee invoices will be issued requesting payment directly from you.
If we arrange or you hold a commission-free fund through our agency that doesn’t pay renewal commission, we will charge a fee of 0.5% per annum as your servicing agent. Our fee will be calculated monthly, based on the value of your commission-free fund on the last business day of each month and payable bi-annually in arrears. Fees are based on whole months. No fees are payable for investments held for part of a month.
We may contact you in the future by means of an unsolicited promotion (by telephone, email or post) should we wish to discuss the relative merits of a particular product or service which we feel may be of interest to you. You may ask us not to contact you by writing to us at: Elson Associates Plc, 5 Queen Street, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent, ME19 4DA
We are not permitted to handle client money and we cannot accept a cheque made out to us (unless it is in respect of an item for which we have sent you an invoice) or handle cash.
We will arrange for all your investments to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing. We will forward documents of title to you as soon as practicable after we receive them. Where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions is involved we will normally hold the documents until the series is complete and then forward them to you.
If you want to register a complaint, please write to us at the address given at the head of this document or telephone us on 01732 433433. A summary of our procedures for handling complaints is available on request.
If we are unable to settle your complaint to your satisfaction, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service at: South Quay Plaza, 183 Marsh Wall, London, E14 9SR
We are covered by the FSCS. You may be entitled to compensation from this scheme if this firm ceases to trade and as a result of our advice you have suffered a financial loss. This depends on the type of business and the circumstances of the claim.
For Investments
Most types of business are covered up to a maximum limit of £50,000.
For Insurance
Insurance advising and arranging is covered for 90% of the claim, without any upper limit. For compulsory classes of insurance, insurance advising and arranging is covered up to a maximum limit of £50,000.
Further information about compensation scheme arrangements is available from the FSCS.
We are required by the anti-money laundering regulations to verify the identity of our clients, to obtain information as to the purpose and nature of the business which we conduct on their behalf, and to ensure that the information we hold is up-to-date. For this purpose we may use electronic identity verification systems and we may conduct these checks from time to time throughout our relationship, not just at the beginning.
We maintain professional indemnity insurance.