Charles James

We have been using Charles James for many years. They automatically send us our annual house insurance quote (the best deal available) without us even thinking about it.
We have done everything through them, both our Life Insurance policies , Pensions and Wills.
We have always asked them to sort us the best Mortgage. Just recently Ryan Thickett has worked so hard to get us our new mortgage offer secured and house survey done on a house we wanted to buy in less than 3 weeks, which has been incredible.

We would always recommend this family run business 100%

Following a discussion with Charles James I agreed to make a few amendments to my review:

During initial visit appeared very professional and my intention was to make annual pension contributions, this all changed when I questioned the £600 it would cost me for Charles James to make an online payment I can do myself in seconds [edit, I spoke to other IFA’s, general view is that they would reduce the cost for these contributions as no specific advice is required, there is no flexibility with structure in place with Charles James]

Professional relationship deteriorated from this point. Had to chase my annual pension report, when questioned they advised they only made £23 so wasn’t worth their time [edit - explained during call that the complexity of an account with personal contributions and initial investment make this complex to review, I can accept this as an explanation but wonder if it would still be deemed “complex” if I had a much larger sum initially invested and still made my own regular payments, also explained that they thought I had taken over self management of the pension and weren’t aware that they were still receiving management fee, not sure I fully agree with this but can accept a misunderstanding as we had exchanged emails where I stated I may move the management of my pension]

I have worked as a consultant in financial services for over 15 years and the treatment from Charles James due to poor communication and inflexibility are not to the standard I expected

My recommendation would be to avoid, there are plenty of IFA’s who will look after you however everything did start on a very positive note so maybe I just had a bad experience here.

First rate service