Due diligence on advisers

Andy_Schleider

I have a question following a chat I had with a potential client yesterday. He said he was happy for me to do as much due diligence on him as I thought was necessary, which brings me on to my question: do you carry out any due diligence on new advisers, or do you take them at face value? If you do carry out due diligence, can I ask what this involves?

I did a couple of basic checks on another potential client and there are a few things on the company itself that I've seen that I'm not 100% comfortable with (Companies House showed some charges and stuff that have been settled, plus a couple of other companies listed which may point to phoenixing), but the adviser himself is Chartered with CISI (I was able to check that) so maybe I'm worrying about nothing.

PPWow

Hi Andy,

I'm not freelancing so this is just my thoughts but I think the level of due diligence that you've carried sounds enough. Just make sure that any advice you work on is suitable, make sure your terms and conditions are tight, and then you should be ok.

Does anyone with more experience on here think otherwise?

benjaminfabi

I don't do any due diligence as such. I will generally do a bit of research on the firm before we have a proper chat about what they're after. Just the website, fca register, companies house, much like if you were going to a job interview you'd want to know about where you were going.

richallum

We're similar to @benjaminfabi with those 'hygiene' factors. We've got an 'ideal client profile' and our due diligence is mainly to see if they fit that to make sure that both sides will benefit from the partnership.