Key Facts - click here

Client Agreement for County Associates

  • INVESTMENT SERVICES: County Associates is permitted to arrange (bring about) deals in investments and advise on investments. With regard to investments which we have arranged for you, these will not be kept under review but we will advise you upon your request. However, we may contact you in the future by means of an unsolicited promotion should we wish to contact you to discuss the relative merits of an investment or service which we feel may be of interest to you.

County Associates does not handle clients money. We never accept a cheque made payable to us or handle cash (unless it is payment in settlement of charges or disbursements for which we have sent you an invoice).

  • CLIENT CATEGORISATION: In providing investment services to you, we will categorise you as a ‘retail client’. The type of client category will determine the level of protections afforded to you under the regulatory system. As a ‘retail client’ the regulatory protections available to you are determined by this category and will be “the highest available”.

  • CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: County Associates offers independent advice, but occasions can arise where we or one of our other clients will have some form of interest in business being transacted for you. If this happens or we become aware that our interests or those of one of our other clients conflict with your interests, we will write to you and obtain your consent before we carry out your instructions, and detail the steps we will take to ensure fair treatment.

  • TERMINATION OF AUTHORITY: You or we, may terminate our authority to act on your behalf at any time, without penalty. Notice of this termination must be given in writing and will take effect from the date of receipt. Termination is without prejudice to any transactions already initiated which will be completed according to this Client Agreement unless otherwise agreed in writing. You will be liable to pay for any transactions made prior to termination and any fees which may be outstanding.

  • RIGHT TO WITHDRAW: In the case of a non packaged product ISA or Pep recommended we will inform you in writing of any right to withdraw or cancel you may have or, if it is the case, we will inform you in writing that no such rights will apply.

  • CLIENTS RISK: You are advised that because investments can fall as well as rise, you may not get back the full amount invested. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

  • LOCUM: Should circumstances occur where investment business could not be conducted, e.g. illness, then County Financial Services, 79 High Street Minster Ramsgate Kent CT12 4AB Tel No. 01843 825608 will advise you in our absence.

  • DATA PROTECTION STATEMENT: The information you have provided is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”). By signing this document you consent to us or any company associated with us processing , both manually and by electronic means, your personal data for the purposes of providing advice, administration and management. “Processing” includes obtaining, recording or holding information or data, transferring it to other companies associated with us, product providers, the FSA or any other statutory, governmental or regulatory body for legitimate purposes including, where relevant, to solicitors and/or other debt collection agencies for debt collection purposes and carrying out operations on the information or data. We may also contact you or pass your details to other companies associated with us to contact you (including by telephone) with details of any other similar products, promotions, or for related marketing purposes in which we think you may be interested .

The information provided may also contain sensitive personal data for the purposes of the Act, being information as to your physical or mental health or condition; the commission or alleged commission of any offence by you; any proceedings for an offence committed or alleged to have been committed by you, including the outcome or sentence in such proceedings; your political opinions, religious or similar beliefs, sexual life; or your membership of a Trade Union.

[   ]    Please tick this box to confirm your consent to us or any company associated with us
           processing any such sensitive personal data.

[   ]   If you are happy for us or any company associated with us to contact you for marketing
          purposes by e-mail, telephone, post or SMS, please tick this box.

If at any time you wish us or any company associated with us to cease processing your personal data or sensitive personal data, or contacting you for marketing purposes, please contact The Data Protection Officer on 01843 825378 or in writing at County Associates 50 Monkton Road Minster Ramsgate Kent CT12 4ED.You may be assured that we and any company associated with us will treat all personal data and sensitive personal data as confidential and will not process it other than for a legitimate purposes. teps will be taken to ensure that the information is accurate, kept up to date and not kept for longer than is necessary. Measures will also be taken to safeguard against unauthorised or unlawful processing and accidental loss or destruction or damage to the data. Subject to certain exceptions, you are entitled to have access to your personal and sensitive personal data held by us. You may be charged a fee (subject to the statutory maximum) for supplying you with such data.

  • HOW WE CHARGE FOR OUR SERVICES. Our income normally comes from either commission from the product providers (e.g. pension and investment providers) with whom we write business, or fees paid to us by our clients. Whenever commission is available to us, you can choose whether to pay us by allowing us to keep the commission, or by paying us a fee instead. This is in line with standard industry practice. We will tell you how much the commission is before the transaction. In some circumstances, we may also charge a fee on top of any commission we might receive. The exact amounts will depend on the service provided to you.

If you choose to pay us on a fee basis, we will agree its basis, frequency and method with you in writing before e carry out any work that we charge for you.

We may also receive some form of benefit if we introduce business to a product provider or another firm. We will tell you before the transaction if we are likely to receive some form of benefit from recommending any product to you, or from working with any product provider firm.

We will provide further details on the costs of our services in a separate document.

  • ACCOUNTING TO YOU. Unless in exceptional circumstances, we will confirm to you in writing the basis or our reason for recommending the transaction executed on your behalf.

We will also make arrangements for all your investments to be registered in your name unless you first instruct us otherwise in writing. We will forward to you all documents showing ownership of your investments as soon as practicable after we receive them; where a number of documents relating to a series of transactions is involved, we will normally hold each document until the series is complete and then forward them to you.

  • INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES & RESTRICTIONS. Following the issue of this document any subsequent advice or recommendation offered to you will be based on your stated investment objectives, acceptable level of risk and any restrictions you wish to place on the type of investments or policies you are willing to consider. Details of your stated investment objectives will be identified during our discussions with you and confirmed in the suitability report that we will issue to you to confirm our recommendation. Unless confirmed in writing, to the contrary, we will assume that you do not wish to place any restrictions on the advice we give you.

  • CLIENTS CONSENT. I understand and consent to the above terms and I hereby authorise the transfer of information, as described above on a confidential basis when warranted between such third parties. I agree that the Client Agreement will come into effect from the date of acceptance of this agreement.
Client Name(s) ___________________________________________________
Client signature(s) ___________________________________________________
Date of issue ___________________________________________________

Issued by County Associates 50 Monkton Road Minster Ramsgate Kent CT12 4ED
Tel No. 01843825378    Fax: 01843848278
County Associates is Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority