Advisers cautioned on clients' relationships
Planners need to be careful in how they treat a client's informal partner in their own advice records, according to York Family Law director Nabil Wahhab.
"They need to start treading carefully in how they describe that person," Wahhab said.
Some advisers in the industry have been contacting Wahhab in response to a recent article he authored in Money Management on relationship status implications.
Those advisers were now taking the issue of partner titles in their written records much more seriously and investigating the true nature of their client's relationship, he said.
In some cases, they were even making a record of how the client describes their relationship with a partner, he said.
If the adviser acts on the basis that the partner in question is a de facto partner, he could make a financial plan that involves that partner, creating evidence that these two people have a more significant relationship than they actually do, Wahhab said.
The adviser may have got it wrong and needs to ask the client more questions, he said.
Many clients were naive about the financial consequences of doing something, he added.
A client may have a new partner and may try to shift income to that partner to reduce their own tax liability because they think it's convenient, but there are significant consequences from doing that, Wahhab said.
Recommended for you
The corporate regulator has cancelled the AFSL of a Perth advice firm with the firm having previously seen its licence temporarily suspended in 2020.
Private equity giant TA Associates has made a strategic investment of an undisclosed sum into a major Australian wealth and investment player.
Shaw and Partners chief executive, Earl Evans, has said the firm is seeking to double the assets under management at its latest New Zealand acquisition ISG, having made the “left field” decision to embark on overseas M&A.
Advice licensee Count has seen an appeal filed to a class action against it which was dismissed earlier this year.
