A million people failed to return their tax forms on time at the end of January — around one in 12 of those expected to file. And you can bet that last weekend there was a rush of savers paying money into their Isas and pensions to beat the end-of-tax-year deadline.
So it was no surprise to see in a recent report a line pointing out that while 60 per cent of ultra high net worth families have a written succession plan, half of them have not implemented it. What stops so many of us getting our act together?
This is more than something a few handy life hacks can sort. But here are some questions that might help those struggling.
Is your financial plan too complicated?
The best plan may not be perfect — it’s the one you’re most likely to implement. For most families, even very wealthy ones, pensions, Isas and general investment accounts invested largely in passive products do the job. The investment industry likes more complex and opaque products. Sometimes they’re needed but they tend to come with extra fees. They may promise to reduce your tax bill but can involve additional costs and trade-offs. And they’ll certainly make it harder to remember what you’re doing and why. Keep it as simple as possible.
Does Is your financial planner speaking a language you understand?
Most clients focus on emotion, identity and legacy. They want to be comfortable, be good to those they care about and to live with their hearts on fire, fulfilling their dreams. Financial planners focus on structure, logic and outcomes and can too easily go straight into talking about Sipps and loan trusts and other “solutions”. If you don’t understand what they’re talking about, ask for greater clarity and, if necessary, go elsewhere.
Make sure you have a short document safely tucked away somewhere that you understand and can go back to again and again that reminds you what you’ve got where, what you’re doing with it and why. Even if you have expert advice, it can be a good idea to write this in your own words. It can help you sense check the plan and maintain ownership of it.
Do you have PDFobia?
A friend told me the other day how he had £500,000 he needed to invest. A financial planner devised him a strategy but then sent him an email containing 10 PDFs — an 18-page customer requirements document, a 20-page client agreement, and so it went on — to 97 pages. Regulations can require substantial form filling, but this should be made as painless as possible. Suffice to say my friend was too busy to hunt down his National Insurance number, read carefully through everything and write his signature and date of birth 20 times.
Forms can be useful. You might have a conversation with someone charming who listens to your needs and comes back with a convincing presentation, but the crunch point comes when you have to sign on the dotted line. This is when you’re most likely to have reflected and started realising you are not so clear about some things. That’s healthy. And that can be when you need your financial planner most — alongside you to answer questions. Otherwise, those forms will be left in an envelope on the kitchen table.
Have you been completely open?
We talk to financial planners about our dreams and needs and share all our financial affairs, but one conversation we often miss is the one about any personal our challenges we may have making and implementing decisions. Financial planning should be done by couples together — but that can double the chances of one partner’s struggles stalling a plan’s completion.
Be open about these difficulties with your financial and they’ll be better able to support you in overcoming the obstacles. It might be anxiety about transferring large sums of money from your account into another. There are enough fraud attacks to make anyone nervous. Just having someone alongside you at the point of transfer who can check instantly that the money has arrived may help.
Don’t beat yourself up over not doing your financial administration on time. That won’t help. Recognise that it takes a lot of mental energy to come up with a plan and implement it — even with professional help. Sometimes the obstacles are outside your control, like life challenges, health issues and overwhelming demands from your family.
List the jobs. Do those you can do instantly and the rest as soon as possible. It may help to think of each job as having a delay cost — a lost financial opportunity or the mental toll of having to hold it in your brain or revisit it later when you’ll need to remind yourself where things stood. Prioritise those with the biggest delay cost.
Finally, if financial administration feels like torture, line up a reward for ticking off these tedious jobs — maybe a nice dinner out together or a luxury chocolate treat. Draw up a dopamine plan to match the jobs in your financial plan and it might just help you get through this!
Nathan Valbonesi is a Chartered Fellow of the CISI and leads the investment and wealth advice team at Weatherbys Private Bank
*Featured on the Financial Times website on 10th April 2026: What’s stopping you getting your financial act together?
What you need to know
This article does not constitute advice. Tax laws are subject to change and taxation will vary depending on individual circumstances.