On the face of it, a mortgage seems a simple arrangement, but perhaps less so when interest rates are forecast to rise. A large number of people have other debts as well, and some have business loans. Against the background of a complex life, mortgages and loans can dovetail perfectly with your affairs or potentially run contrary to your overall financial strategy. At Price Ferguson, we help our clients to fully understand this part of their lives.

For most people living in Surrey, the tax system involves Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax. For all of these, there are financial products that can be used to reduce the tax liability. This is because the Government wants to encourage us to take responsibility for our own financial future, rather than being reliant on the state. Quite simply, we help our clients to make the most of the different reliefs that are available and, therefore, pay less tax.

Investing money is a complex process involving risk and reward. The more risk you take, the greater the potential gains, but also the greater the risk of possible short-term loss. We help our clients to understand their appetite for risk, then design a portfolio for them that reflects this so that they feel comfortable with the approach that is taken. We also know that people's attitude to risk changes over time, and so regular reviews are an important part of our service. It also goes without saying that we will look to help people make their investments as tax-efficiently as possible.

In recent years, retirement planning has changed in two fundamental ways. First of all, people are living longer in retirement than used to be the case, so your money has to last for longer. Secondly, it is now the norm for people to have a number of jobs in their working life, each of which may or may not carry a pension entitlement. This means that most people have little idea as to what income they will have to live on in retirement. In many instances, the situation is more complex as people have other assets that can be used to generate an income, whether a second property, business assets or other investments.

The starting point with all Price Ferguson's clients is to help them understand where they are now – if there is a likely shortfall in funding, we can put plans in place that will help to address this.

When approaching retirement, we help our clients understand the range of options they have in terms of actually delivering their income and, indeed, any lump sum entitlement as well.

This area of our work is becoming increasingly important and complex, with a greater need than ever to make the right choices – both from a flexibility point of view but also taking taxation into account.

This deserves a separate heading from 'taxation', as it is now such a major issue for many people.

Without doing anything about it, it can seriously damage family wealth for future generations. Yet it has also been described as a voluntary tax, as there are many things that can be done to help reduce the impact of the tax over the longer term, whilst still giving you access to your capital should you need it.