Ed Janes - Quilter Financial Advisers

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Ed Janes - Quilter Financial Advisers

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I am a Financial Planner at Quilter Financial Advisers providing services in Pensions, Inheritance Tax and retirement planning, Investments, and Protection.

Do you know what your number is that will enable you to retire? To be at the point that everyone wants to be. To have enough money to live the life you want for the rest of your life, without the fear of running out of money. Well…. I can tell you. You can refer to me as a “lifestyle” financial planner. I help you achieve your long-term financial goals by taking the time to understand how things are for you now and listen to what you would like life to be like for you and your family in the future. I use cutting-edge software to create a well-balanced financial plan as well as advise you how to invest wisely, effectively and as tax-efficiently as possible. I also help people with intergenerational wealth, so your hard work can help the people you want, for generations. I often think about the saying “You don’t know what you don’t know” as it prompts the question; Can you be certain that you’re making informed decisions about you and your family’s future if you’re not taking advice? Approver Quilter Financial Services Limited & Quilter Mortgage Planning Limited. 29/10/2024

23/10/2026

The cheaper policy that wasn't.

Steve's life and critical illness cover cost £45 a month for fifteen years. Then the insurer reviewed it, and the new price was £160.

He took the policy out at 37, when his first child was born. Two quotes came back: one with guaranteed premiums, one with reviewable premiums at a noticeably lower price. Same cover, smaller monthly bill. He chose the cheaper one, as most people would.

What "reviewable" means is that the insurer can reprice the policy at set points, based on what the cover now costs them to provide. At 37 that cost was low. At 52 it isn't. The review more than tripled his premium.

Now Steve has an awkward choice. Pay the new price, cut the cover, or cancel and start again. Starting again means fresh medical questions, and since he was 37 he's been diagnosed with high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. A new policy would be expensive, if he can get one on standard terms at all.

The guaranteed policy would have cost more each month at the start. But that price was fixed for the whole term. Over the life of the policy, the "expensive" option is often the cheaper one, and it never forces a decision at the age when replacing cover is hardest.

Reviewable premiums aren't always wrong. For short-term needs, or where budget genuinely rules, they can make sense. The problem is choosing them without knowing what they are.

If you hold protection, it's worth checking which kind of premium you have, and when the next review is due.

The cheapest quote is only cheap on day one.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

21/10/2026

The old pension she nearly threw away.

Linda wanted her pensions in one place. One of them was worth far more than it looked.

She's 63, with five pensions from forty years of different jobs. She wanted everything in one app, with one set of charges and one login. Consolidating felt like good housekeeping.

Four of the pensions were straightforward. The fifth, a policy from the early 1990s worth £120,000, looked like the obvious one to move. Old paperwork, dated funds, an insurer that still sent letters by post.

Buried in its terms was a guaranteed annuity rate. At her chosen retirement age, the policy promises to turn her pot into a lifetime income at a rate set decades ago, when insurers expected very different interest rates. On her pot, that's around £12,000 a year for life, far more than the open market would offer her today for the same money.

The guarantee belongs to that policy. The moment the pot is transferred, it stays behind, and it can't be recreated anywhere else.

Older pensions are full of features like this: guaranteed rates, protected tax-free cash above the usual quarter, earlier retirement ages. They rarely show up on the annual statement, and they're easy to lose in the name of tidying up. For the most valuable guarantees, the rules require advice before a transfer can go ahead, precisely because so many people nearly give them away.

Consolidation is often the right move. It just needs to happen after someone has read the small print on every policy, not before.

Tidy is not always better. Check what you're leaving behind.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

19/10/2026

The pay rise that cost him his child benefit.

Tom's pay rise took him to £70,000. It also cost his family half their child benefit.

He's 38, with two children under five. He'd heard of the child benefit charge but assumed it only hit big earners. It starts at £60,000.

Between £60,000 and £80,000, child benefit is clawed back gradually through a tax charge. At £70,000, Tom sits exactly halfway, so half his family's child benefit goes back to HMRC. With two children that's over £1,000 a year, on top of the 40 per cent tax he's now paying on the rise itself.

Here's what nobody told him. The charge is based on his adjusted net income, and pension contributions reduce that figure. Pay £10,000 into his pension, and as far as the charge is concerned, Tom earns £60,000.

The full child benefit comes back. The contribution also gets tax relief at 40 per cent. Between the relief and the benefit regained, that £10,000 in his pension costs him under £5,000.

The same money, in his pension rather than his pay packet. It builds his retirement, keeps the family's benefit, and cuts his tax bill in one move.

It has to be done properly. Contributions need to land in the right tax year, and higher rate relief usually has to be claimed through a tax return unless the payment is made through salary sacrifice.

Anyone in that £60,000 to £80,000 band with children is standing in one of the most generous corners of the tax system, usually without knowing it.

The same £10,000 did two jobs.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

15/10/2026

They told her to sell the house.

When Bill moved into a care home, three different people told Joan she'd have to sell the house. She very nearly did.

Bill is 84 and has dementia. After a difficult year at home, a care home became the only safe option. Joan, 81, was frightened, and everyone had an opinion: the neighbour, a friend from church, a relative who'd been through it. The house would have to go to pay for his care.

It wouldn't.

When a council assesses someone's ability to pay for care, the home is ignored for as long as their husband, wife or partner still lives in it. Joan is staying put, so the house doesn't count towards Bill's care at all.

The savings follow a similar logic. It's Bill's own money that's assessed, not everything they own together. Joint savings are generally treated as split between them, so Joan's share remains her own.

That doesn't make care free. Bill's income and his share of the savings will still be looked at, and many families do end up funding care for years. That's exactly why the facts matter early, before a decision is made in a panic.

Joan came close to selling the family home and moving somewhere smaller. That would have turned an asset that didn't count into cash that did, with Bill's share of it assessed. A decision driven by fear would have made her position worse.

The right answers are usually far less frightening than the ones passed around the kitchen table.

Fear makes expensive decisions. Facts make better ones.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

13/10/2026

Married forty years. He still couldn't sign.

Peter and Susan had been married for forty years. When she had a stroke, he found out he had no legal right to touch her money.

Susan is 71. The stroke left her unable to make decisions or sign anything. Peter assumed that as her husband he could simply step in. The bank, the pension provider and the ISA manager all told him the same thing: not without legal authority.

Their plan had been to sell the family home and buy a bungalow near their daughter. The house is in joint names, so the sale needs both signatures. Susan can't give hers.

Without a lasting power of attorney, the only route is an application to the Court of Protection to appoint a deputy. It takes months, costs considerably more, and comes with annual reporting for as long as it lasts. Meanwhile Susan's ISA sits untouched, her pension can't be managed properly, and the bungalow goes to someone else.

None of this is unusual. Most people plan for death, with a will, life cover, perhaps a trust. Far fewer plan for the thing just as likely to arrive first: being alive, but no longer able to manage your own affairs.

A lasting power of attorney covers exactly that. You choose who acts for you, while you're well enough to choose. Made and registered in advance, it lets the people you trust step in straight away.

The cost of making one is modest. The cost of not having one usually lands on the person you love most, at the worst possible moment.

Plan for losing capacity, not just for dying.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

09/10/2026

Two years to rewrite his mother's will

When Mark's mother died, she left him £200,000. He didn't need it, and keeping it would have cost his own children £80,000.

Mark is 58, mortgage free, with a good pension and an estate already well above the inheritance tax threshold. Every pound of his mother's gift would simply sit on top of his own estate, waiting to be taxed at 40 per cent when he dies. On £200,000, that's £80,000.

He wanted the money to go to his two children, now in their twenties and trying to buy their first homes. The obvious move was to give it to them himself. But that's a gift from Mark, so it only leaves his estate if he lives another seven years.

There's a better route, and it has a deadline. Within two years of a death, beneficiaries can sign a deed of variation, which rewrites how the will distributes the estate. For inheritance tax, the money is treated as though his mother had left it to her grandchildren herself.

So it never becomes Mark's. It isn't a gift from him, there's no seven-year clock, and it doesn't touch his estate at all. His mother's estate is taxed exactly as it would have been anyway.

The deed has to be done properly, with the right statements included and everyone affected agreeing to it. Done well, it's one of the simplest pieces of planning available, and one of the least known.

Once two years have passed, the inheritance is simply Mark's, with all the tax that comes with it.

A will can be rewritten after death. Just not forever.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

07/10/2026

Given away twelve years ago, still in her estate.

Inheritance tax has a rule for exactly this. If you give something away but keep enjoying it, the gift is ignored and the asset is treated as still yours. Pauline gave away the paperwork. She kept the house. So the full value, now £600,000, sat in her estate as if the transfer had never happened.

Then came the second problem. Normally, when someone dies, the gain on their assets is wiped clean for capital gains tax, and whoever inherits starts afresh at today's value. That didn't happen here, because legally the house had been her son's for twelve years. His starting point is its value on the day she gave it to him, around £350,000. When he sells, he'll pay capital gains tax on £250,000 of growth.

Inheritance tax as if she'd kept it. Capital gains tax because she didn't. The worst of both.

There are legitimate ways to pass on a home, including some that work while you still live in it, such as paying a full market rent. They have to be set up and evidenced properly, which is the part the internet version leaves out.

Giving it away only works if you actually let it go.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

05/10/2026

He left it to his wife. His children got nothing.

Graham left everything to his wife, on the understanding it would go to his children after her. It never reached them.

Graham married Sue after his first wife died. He had two children, she had a son. They lived in the house Graham had owned for thirty years. His will was simple: everything to Sue. They'd talked it through. When she was gone, the house would go to his children. She agreed, and she meant it.

Graham died at 71. The house became Sue's outright.

Four years later Sue remarried. In England and Wales, marriage automatically cancels an existing will, and she never made a new one. When she died, the intestacy rules divided her estate between her new husband and her own son. Graham's children, as stepchildren, had no claim under those rules at all.

Nobody behaved badly. Sue didn't betray anyone. The problem is that once assets pass outright, they belong to the new owner, to leave however they choose, or however the law decides if they don't. A promise, however sincere, isn't a legal instruction.

This is where a trust in the will earns its place. Graham could have left the house so that Sue had the right to live there for the rest of her life, fully secure, with the house passing to his children after her. Her home protected, his wishes protected, and on the first death the inheritance tax position is typically no different from leaving it to her outright.

It matters most in second marriages and blended families, but it applies wherever a plan depends on someone doing the right thing later.

Trusting someone is not the same as a trust.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

02/10/2026

£1m in the company bank, £400,000 of tax risk.

David's company had £1 million sitting in the bank, built up over twenty careful years. For inheritance tax, that caution could cost his family £400,000.

David is 62 and owns an engineering business worth around £3 million. About £2 million is the trading business itself. The other £1 million is cash, retained profit he's never needed, kept as a safety net.

He assumed the whole company would pass to his children with Business Relief, the inheritance tax relief on trading businesses. Most of it would. The cash is the problem.

Business Relief is designed for business property. Money the company holds but doesn't need for its trade can be treated as an excepted asset, and excepted assets get no relief at all. If HMRC decides that £1 million isn't required by the business, it's taxed as if David held it personally. At 40 per cent, £400,000.

A large enough pile of cash or investments can raise a bigger question: whether the company is still mainly trading at all. If that tips the wrong way, relief on the whole company is at risk, not just the cash.

None of this means reserves are wrong. A business genuinely needs working capital, and cash set aside for a specific, evidenced future purpose can still qualify. The issue is money that has quietly accumulated with no job to do.

With full relief now capped at £2.5 million since April 2026, the shape of the company matters more than ever. Surplus cash can be extracted, put to work, or planned for deliberately. It just shouldn't be left to chance.

A healthy balance sheet isn't always a well-planned one.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

01/10/2026

A £20,000 kitchen, a limit for life

Karen took £20,000 from her pension for a new kitchen. It turned out to be the most expensive kitchen she'll ever buy, and the builder had nothing to do with it.

She's 56, still working, and her pension had grown nicely. Taking a lump out seemed harmless. It was her money, she was old enough, and she paid the income tax on it.

What she didn't know is that taking taxable money out flexibly triggers a much lower limit on future saving. Before the withdrawal, she could pay up to £60,000 a year into her pensions with tax relief. After it, £10,000. Permanently.

A year later she joined a new employer with a generous scheme. Between her and the company, £20,000 a year goes in. That's £10,000 over her new limit, and the excess is taxed at her marginal rate. At 40 per cent, a £4,000 charge, every year she stays. The usual escape route, using unused allowance from earlier years, isn't available against this limit.

The part that stings is how avoidable it was. Had she taken only her tax-free cash, the quarter of a pension that can come out without income tax, the lower limit would never have been triggered. Same kitchen, paid from a different part of the same pension, and her allowance stays untouched.

This catches people in their fifties more than anyone: still working, still saving, and dipping into a pension for the first time simply because they can.

The withdrawal was small. The limit is permanent.

This is a fictional example provided solely for illustrative purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Please note that individual circumstances vary and are subject to change, as is tax legislation.

Address

Otford
Sevenoaks
TN14

Telephone

+447743043789

Website

https://www.quilter.com/edward-janes

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