Martin (Berkshire)

My name is Martin Beasley, I’ve been a client of UnaVida for five or six years now. and my adviser throughout that time has been Ray Best. What I wanted to achieve was a degree of financial security for my children and grandchildren. Ray offered a free interview / assessment of our financial situation.

I went through the complexities of that and rather than just offering a single solution, he positioned a whole package of solutions.

There’s been three phases in the way that Ray has helped me. The first phase was consolidating our assets and starting to dispose of some buy-to-lets. The second phase following my wife’s death, was refocusing where those assets were for our changing circumstances, and the third phase was the creation of a property renovation company, to employ my son and his partner, and to move some of some of those assets into the company.

I tend to look at Ray as a friend, rather than just an adviser and I talk to him quite frequently, more frequently than you’d expect to talk to an adviser, I guess. and he pushes me and the company to do things differently than we would do normally. For example, he advised us on the solicitor that we use and the accountant we use, we wouldn’t have had an accountant if it hadn’t been for Ray. and he manages to get us to look at things differently so that we pick the best solution rather than necessarily the cheapest version.

I guess the three words I’d characterise my relationship with UnaVida and Ray as, they’re always supportive, they’re innovative, and they provide a whole solution. The best thing about working with Ray is that he’s always there when I need him.

The best single piece of advice was the establishment of the property renovation company, because it’s transformed the lives of literally half a dozen different people and for the better. The reason I’d recommend him is that when you’re dealing with Ray, you’re not dealing with somebody at the other end of the phone that might be, I don’t know in Aberdeen or somewhere, he’s kind of local. He’s available. But also his solutions can cope with a wide variety of different financial needs.