Wealth planning
Decisions that outlast any market cycle.
Retirement, succession, tax and giving are usually handled separately, years apart, by different advisers. Planned together, they produce a materially different outcome.
Almost every planning problem we are asked to fix arrives late: a business sold before anyone modelled the tax, a will drafted twenty years and two marriages ago, a retirement date chosen without knowing whether the capital supports it. None of these are difficult problems in advance. All of them are expensive afterwards.
Retirement planning
How much is enough, and for how long?
The honest answer depends on your spending, your longevity, inflation and the order in which returns arrive — and that last one matters far more than most people expect. Two retirees with identical average returns can end up in very different places purely because of when the bad years fell.
So we do not give you a single number. We model your plan across hundreds of paths and show you the range: what happens if you retire two years earlier, spend fifteen per cent more, or live to ninety-eight.
- Cash-flow modelling from today to age one hundred, in your spending currency
- Pension versus lump sum, tested against your actual tax position
- Drawdown sequencing — which pot to spend first, and why order matters
- Stress tests for early retirement, long-term care and a surviving spouse
Succession & estate
Who inherits what — and how they receive it
Two questions sit behind every estate plan. The first is legal: what do the documents actually say, and do they still reflect your intentions? The second is practical: will your heirs be forced to sell something at the worst possible moment to settle a bill?
A business or a family property is where plans usually fail. An illiquid asset split between heirs who want different things is the single most common cause of a family dispute we are asked to help unwind.
- Review of wills, trusts and beneficiary nominations across every jurisdiction
- Liquidity planning so the estate can pay its obligations without a forced sale
- Business succession: transfer, buy-out or sale, and how each is funded
- Structures that pass control and value at different times, where that is wiser
- Guardianship, incapacity and powers of attorney — the parts people skip
Tax & structuring
The right asset, in the right wrapper
Investment returns are quoted before tax. What you keep depends on which entity owns the asset, where that entity is resident, how income is characterised and when gains are realised. Getting this wrong is quietly more costly than a poor year in markets.
We do not replace your tax counsel — we work alongside them, making sure the investment strategy and the structure were designed with each other in mind rather than in separate rooms.
- Asset location: which holdings belong in which account or entity
- Realisation planning, loss harvesting and the timing of disposals
- Choice of legal form for holding companies, trusts and foundations
- Residence and domicile considerations for internationally mobile families
- Annual review against the year’s legislative changes
TD Wealth Management does not provide legal or tax advice. We coordinate with your appointed advisers and can introduce specialists where you do not yet have one.
Philanthropy
Giving, with the rigour you apply to investing
Most giving is reactive — a request arrives and is answered. Structured giving asks the harder questions first: what change are you funding, over what period, and how will you know whether it worked?
- Choosing the vehicle: direct gifts, a donor-advised fund, a trust or a foundation
- Endowment policy — how much to spend each year and how to invest the rest
- Due diligence on grantees, and reporting that goes beyond a thank-you letter
- Involving children and grandchildren in the allocation decisions
Family governance
Wealth survives longer when the family can talk about it
The received wisdom that family wealth rarely lasts three generations has more to do with communication than with investment returns. Governance is simply the habit of deciding things openly, before the decision is urgent.
A family constitution
A written statement of what the wealth is for, who participates in decisions, and how disagreements get resolved. Not legally binding, and far more useful than that description suggests.
A family council
A standing forum with an agenda, minutes and a chair, so that succession, distributions and philanthropy are discussed on a schedule rather than at funerals and weddings.
Preparing the next generation
Structured financial education for adult children — budgeting, investing, tax and the responsibilities that come with an inheritance — taught before the money arrives rather than after.
Independent chairing
Where a conversation is difficult, an outsider in the room helps. We chair family meetings on request, and we are comfortable being the person who asks the awkward question.
Cross-border wealth
When the family, the assets and the tax bill live in different countries
Children studying abroad, a spouse with a different nationality, property in two jurisdictions and a business in a third. Each country will tax you under its own rules and none of them will coordinate on your behalf.
- Mapping where each asset sits, who owns it and which country taxes it
- Currency strategy matched to where you actually spend, not where you earn
- Wills that work across jurisdictions rather than contradicting one another
- Reporting built for multiple tax years and multiple filing requirements
- Planning ahead of a move, which is almost always the cheapest moment to act
Timing
When to start planning
Every one of these is cheaper to handle before the event than after it.
Next step
A planning review, before anything is invested
We offer planning as a standalone, fixed-fee engagement — no mandate, no obligation to invest with us afterwards. Many clients start here.