What a regulated financial adviser can do, and how they are paid

Regulation does not protect you from losing money. An investment a fully authorised adviser recommended can fall by half and you will have no complaint worth making. What regulation protects is the process: that somebody qualified asked about your circumstances, recorded why the recommendation fitted them, and did not steer you somewhere because it paid better. If nobody asked how long you needed the money for, or how much you could afford to lose, that is the kind of failure complaints are upheld on.

What an adviser is actually permitted to do

Giving a personal recommendation on investments or pensions is a regulated activity. The firm needs permission for it, and the adviser must hold an approved qualification and an annual Statement of Professional Standing confirming they have kept it current. That is a floor, not a mark of quality.

Permissions are also narrower than people assume. A firm authorised to advise on investments is not automatically authorised to advise on transferring a defined benefit pension; that is a separate permission, and it covers the ground where the worst UK advice failures happened, so if anybody offers to review a final-salary pension, look that permission up first.

Since April 2026 there has also been a middle option: firms with the right permission can offer targeted support, a suggestion aimed at a group of people in a situation like yours. It covers pensions and retail investments only, never a mortgage or a protection policy; most firms are expected to offer it free of charge; and complaints about it can reach the ombudsman. Nobody examined your circumstances, so do not treat a suggestion made to a category as a recommendation made to you. The FCA explains the regime here.

Independent and restricted are legal labels, and restricted is not an insult

A firm must tell you in writing, before advising, whether its advice is independent or restricted, and a restricted firm must explain the restriction. Independent means it considers the relevant products across the market; restricted means something is excluded, whether a panel of providers, a whole product type, or everything outside one company's range. Restricted advice can be excellent, so the label is never the question. Whether the restriction touches your problem is: a firm whose panel excludes annuities is the wrong firm if you are buying an income for life. Ask what you will not be offered, and whether any of it bears on what you have just described. A vague answer is itself the answer.

Three fee shapes, and the one that keeps charging

Commission on new investment and pension advice ended with the Retail Distribution Review at the end of 2012, and the money now comes from you: an hourly rate, a fixed fee for defined work, or a percentage of what you invest plus a smaller percentage each year after. If you hold a product bought before then, you may still be paying trail commission to an adviser you have never met; the FCA has been gathering evidence on whether that should continue.

The percentage is usually deducted from the investment rather than invoiced, so it never appears as money leaving you: people who would query a three-figure invoice do not query four figures taken quietly from a pension. Ask what last year's charge was in pounds, not in percent. It grows as the pot grows, whether or not the work does.

Commission has not vanished everywhere. On pure protection insurance — life cover, income protection, critical illness — and on mortgages, the provider still pays the adviser, which is why those conversations can feel free. One adviser in one meeting may be fee-paid on your ISA and commission-paid on your life cover, so ask which is which.

An ongoing charge buys an ongoing service, and you can switch it off

If you pay an ongoing charge you are buying something specific: a periodic review of whether the advice still suits you, and the firm must be able to show it delivered. The FCA has consulted on replacing the fixed annual review with a frequency that reflects what the client needs, so the wording of the rule may have changed by the time you read this. What you are paying for will not — a charge for a service still has to buy a service. If you cannot remember the last review, ask in writing what you received and what you paid; if the answer comes back thin, the charge can be stopped, usually by an instruction to the product provider rather than a negotiation with the adviser. Across a decade it is one of the largest avoidable costs in household finance.

Which safety net you get depends on whether the firm still exists

If the firm is still trading, you complain to the firm and then to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free and whose final decision binds the firm once you accept it; accepting also ends your right to sue over the same complaint, and the reply has a deadline. If the firm has collapsed, you go to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme instead, whose limit per person per firm is substantially lower than the maximum the ombudsman can award. Both publish their current limits. The same bad advice is worth less once the adviser has gone, which is the argument for complaining early rather than waiting to see whether things recover.

Check the register, then ring the number on the register

Every authorised firm and its trading names sit on the Financial Services Register, and you can look an individual adviser up in the same place: two minutes tells you whether it exists, what it may do, and whether the name on the website is one it is allowed to use. Then do the part people skip: make contact using the number on the register, not the number in the email. Clone firms copy a genuine firm's name, reference number and address, change the phone and bank details, and rely on you checking the register and finding everything correct. The FCA also keeps a warning list of firms operating without authorisation.

Nobody allowed to advise you will guarantee a return

“Guaranteed” next to a fixed annual percentage is the signature of something other than what it appears to be. A regulated adviser cannot promise returns; the good ones give you a range and the odds of being wrong. Products sold with guarantees attached — unlisted bonds, overseas property, storage units, carbon credits — often sit outside the regulated perimeter, so even where the seller held authorisation, the ombudsman and the FSCS may be unable to help. The authorisation was real; the protection was never attached to what you bought.

Take four questions to a first meeting, and write the answers down.

1. Are you independent or restricted, and what can you not recommend to me?
2. What will this cost in pounds this year, and every year after?
3. What does the ongoing charge buy, and what did you deliver on it last year?
4. What are the chances this does not work?

Someone who answers all four plainly is worth paying; someone who answers the last with a single number and no range should not be advising you. MoneyHelper's guidance on choosing an adviser is free and impartial.

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This is general information about how a process works, not advice about your situation. Thresholds, fees and deadlines change — check the official source linked above for the current figures, or ask a professional who can see your circumstances.