General financial advice

Questions to ask a financial advisor before you hire one

3 mins read

Regulated Advice Team

Last updated 3 October, 2026

This article covers the questions to ask a financial advisor before you hire them, so nothing is a surprise once you go ahead with the advice.

A good advisor introduces their firm and experience, runs a proper fact find before explaining their fee structure clearly, therefore answering most of your questions. The questions set out here are a good fall back position to help steer the meeting.

Table of contents

What happens before you even meet an advisor

Questions to ask a financial advisor

Summary: Questions to ask a financial advisor before you hire one

This article explains the key questions to ask a financial advisor before hiring them, covering their experience, fees, fact find, authority process and timeline. It also includes a case study showing why investment management, asset consolidation and estate planning should be planned early.

What happens before you even meet an advisor

If you have come through a service like Regulated Advice, some of the groundwork is already done. An agent will have asked your age, what advice you want, and if it is about pensions, how many you have, their value, the providers, and when you want to retire.

An agent writes that information into a short case study and sends it to the advisor before the meeting. Whether that is face to face or over Teams. It means the first conversation starts from something, rather than nothing, and gives the advisor time to research the providers you already have.

Case study

Age 62 and due to inherit £3.25 million. Her step son in law made the call and wants to be present at the meeting. There is £600,000 in drawdown and £500,000 in ISAs on the Transact platform. There is £200,000 invested in various funds with Vanguard. There is £180,000 in other high street ISA accounts. There are three rental properties that once sold will also be invested, £1 million to £1.5 million. Her principal property is worth £1.6 million. She needs a new financial advisor to offer initial advice on the portfolio and would like ongoing management of the funds long term. She would like to pay 0.25% management fees. She also requires estate planning advice. The estate is in probate and will complete in three to four weeks.

This client needs two things running in parallel: a consolidation and investment strategy for the assets she already holds, and a plan ready to activate the moment probate completes and the inheritance lands. The advisor should map out how the drawdown, ISAs, and Vanguard funds sit together before recommending any changes, then agree the 0.25% ongoing fee in writing. With an inheritance of this size, estate planning conversations, trusts, gifting, and inheritance tax exposure, should start now rather than after the funds arrive, and the step son in law's role in the meeting is worth clarifying early given the scale of the sums involved. In short: a good advisor introduces their firm and experience, runs a proper fact find before mentioning fees, explains charges clearly, and only asks for a letter of authority once you are ready to proceed. If any of those steps get skipped or rushed, that is worth asking about too.