Do your professional advisors know if you like pizza?
Why would your professional advisors need to know whether you like pizza? Well, it’s just an expression really - what we’re trying to get at is how can they advise you what’s in your best interests if they don’t even know what your “interests” or ethics are? Here’s a couple of examples:
Recently a client’s solicitor got their back up because we queried their drafted legal documents. We were told they had spent “4 years in law school” so we weren’t expected to question them. A pretty high and mighty approach we thought. In our usual style (well Dave’s actually), we did question them … quite a lot. Not only were the draft documents not as our client had instructed, but the solicitor didn’t even get the client’s name right! Thank goodness we did stick our noses in … even if it means we won’t be on that particular Christmas card list!
In asking their accountant’s advice recently, another client was advised to invoice a deceased estate for a $900.00 bill. Now from the accountant’s point of view this is completely the right decision to make. However, from our client’s point of view this was not the way they run their business - coming into play was their business ethics and the possible repercussions of billing a deceased estate for what really, was a small amount. Just not worth it. Sometimes decisions need to be made looking at the broader picture, not just the tunnel vision of a specialised professional.
We could go on and give more examples. These are just two that happened within the last week. We’d love to hear if you’ve got any similar stories, or if you have some comments to make about this post. You can send us an email, or leave a comment on the blog.
Do you have any questions? Please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d be happy to discuss them with you.
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David Martin
Kathy Martin