The letter is usually short and warm. After many years, your adviser is retiring. They have arranged for the practice to be taken over by a firm they have known for a long time, everything will continue as normal, and there is nothing you need to do.
Most of that is true. Your investments do not move, your super stays where it is, and the new firm is probably perfectly competent. But “nothing you need to do” is not quite right, and the difference between clients who check a few things at this point and clients who do not can be significant.
This is also about to happen to a great many Australians at once, and almost nobody writes about it from the client’s side.
Why this is happening to so many people
Australia had close to 30,000 financial advisers in 2019. As at mid 2026 the figure was around 15,120, having fallen by roughly 440 over the preceding twelve months alone. The profession has roughly halved.
Two structural facts follow. The average adviser is in their early fifties, and around 60 per cent of advice practices have a single adviser. Meanwhile new entrants are running at a few hundred a year against several hundred advisers retiring annually.
Put plainly, a large share of Australians receiving advice are receiving it from one person, in their fifties, who will retire within the next decade or so, in a profession with no surplus of successors. Succession is not a remote possibility. For most clients it is a certainty with a date on it, and the date has not been discussed.
The four scenarios
| What happens | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Internal succession | Another adviser in the same practice takes over. Usually the smoothest outcome. The firm, the licensee and the systems all stay the same. |
| The practice is sold | Another firm buys the client base. New adviser, often a new licensee, sometimes new platforms and new fees. The most common scenario and the one needing the most attention. |
| Licensee change only | Your adviser stays but moves to a different Australian financial services licensee. The person is the same; the entity legally responsible for the advice is not. |
| No succession | The adviser retires or stops without a buyer. You may be reassigned by the licensee, or left without an adviser while fees quietly continue. |
What does not change
Worth saying clearly, because this is where the anxiety usually sits. Your money does not move. Your superannuation stays in the fund it is in. Your investments stay on the platform they are on. Your insurance policies remain in force with the same insurer on the same terms.
A financial adviser does not hold your assets. They advise on them and are usually authorised to act on your instructions. A change of adviser is a change of adviser, not a change of custodian, and nobody can move your money because the practice was sold.
What does change, and what to watch
The fee arrangement is your control point
This is the most important section in the article, and it turns on a change in the law that most clients have never heard of.
Since 10 January 2025, under the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms, ongoing fee arrangements operate on a consent basis. In broad terms:
- Your adviser must obtain your written consent to enter into or renew an ongoing fee arrangement, and to have ongoing fees deducted from your account.
- That consent has to be renewed, and it ceases to have effect 150 days after the relevant anniversary date.
- If the consent is not obtained in time, the ongoing fee arrangement terminates automatically.
- Charging ongoing fees after termination is a breach, with civil penalties attached.
- The annual fee disclosure statement obligation was removed and replaced by this consent process.
The practical consequence is significant. Whatever a sale agreement says between the two firms, the ongoing fee cannot simply roll on indefinitely without you actively agreeing to it. The legislation does contemplate that the rights of a fee recipient under an ongoing fee arrangement can be assigned to another person, but your consent to keep paying is still yours to give or withhold.
So the consent form that arrives after a practice sale is not paperwork. It is the moment you decide whether to keep buying this service from these people. Read it, check the fee has not changed, check what services it says you receive, and do not sign it on autopilot because you have signed one every year for a decade. Our guide on what ongoing advice actually costs is a useful benchmark to read it against.
The reason the law works this way is the fee for no service scandal, where clients were charged for years for advice nobody was providing. Orphaned clients after a poorly handled succession are exactly the population that produced it.
Who is legally responsible for the advice
Advisers operate under an Australian financial services licensee. If the licensee changes, the entity responsible for the advice you receive changes, and so does the entity a complaint would be made against. Advice given under the old licensee generally remains that licensee’s responsibility, which matters if a problem with historical advice emerges later.
Ask, in writing, who the new licensee is and what its AFS licence number is. Then verify the new adviser independently on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register, which shows their qualifications, licensee history and any disciplinary action. Our guide on how to check an adviser’s registration and track record walks through it.
The portfolio rebuild
This is the one with the largest dollar consequences and the least visibility.
New owners frequently want clients on the platforms, model portfolios and products the firm uses across its book. There are legitimate reasons for that, including consistency of service and better oversight. But moving a portfolio is not cost free. Selling investments to move platforms can crystallise capital gains, produce transaction costs, and reset holding periods.
For a client with a long held portfolio carrying large unrealised gains, a wholesale restructure can cost tens of thousands of dollars in tax that was never going to be paid this year. Our guides on how parcel selection affects your tax bill and the CGT changes from 1 July 2027 explain why the timing and structure of any restructure matters more than usual right now.
Advisers owe a best interests duty, and a recommendation to restructure has to be justified by your circumstances rather than by the firm’s operating model. If a new adviser proposes moving everything shortly after taking over, the reasonable question is what it will cost you in tax and fees, and what you get in return. A good adviser will have that analysis ready.
Insurance
Servicing rights on life insurance policies typically transfer with the practice. Your cover is unaffected, but check who now services the policies, because at claim time you want to know exactly who to call. This matters more than it sounds. A claim handled by someone who knows the file is a materially different experience from one handled by a stranger.
A checklist for when it happens
- Get the details in writing. Who is taking over, their adviser number, the practice, and the licensee.
- Verify the new adviser on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register before your first meeting, not after.
- Ask whether the licensee has changed and confirm the AFS licence number.
- Meet them before you decide anything. An hour tells you most of what you need to know.
- Check the fee. Same amount, same services, same frequency. If any of the three changed, ask why.
- Read the consent form properly and do not sign until you are satisfied.
- Ask what they intend to change, specifically about platforms and product recommendations, and what any change would cost you in tax and fees.
- Ask for your file. Statements of advice, strategy documents and records. You are entitled to your personal information, and a new adviser who does not have your history will make worse decisions.
- Confirm who services your insurance and how to make a claim.
- Ask about their own succession plan. If you are going through this at seventy, you would rather not do it again at eighty.
Our guide on the fifteen questions to ask a financial adviser works well for that first meeting, because you are effectively engaging someone new even though it does not feel like it.
If your adviser dies or becomes seriously ill
Sudden loss of an adviser is harder, because there is no handover and no introduction.
The licensee is responsible for continuity of service to clients, so the first contact should be the licensee rather than the practice, whose phones may be unattended. Ask who is now responsible for your file and what happens to your ongoing fee in the meantime. Where fees are being deducted and nobody is providing a service, that is exactly the situation the consent rules were designed to end, and you can stop the fee.
Take the time you need. There is rarely anything so urgent that it must be decided in the first month, and a decision made under pressure at that point is usually worse than one made in three months.
Where complaints go
Licensees must be members of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. A complaint is generally made against the licensee that was responsible for the advice at the time it was given, not against whoever holds the file today.
This is why the licensee history matters and why it is worth writing down who your adviser and licensee were, and for which periods. If a problem with older advice surfaces years later, that record is what makes it possible to work out where the complaint belongs.
The question almost nobody asks
Everything above is reactive. The better version happens years earlier, in a single question: what is your succession plan?
It is a fair question and it should not be an awkward one. A sole practitioner in their late fifties with no answer is telling you something useful. So is one who says the practice has a second adviser being developed, or a documented arrangement with a named firm, or that they intend to keep practising for another fifteen years and here is what happens if they cannot.
If you are choosing an adviser, ask it at the first meeting alongside everything else. If you already have one and have never asked, it is a reasonable thing to raise at your next review. Our guide on how often to review your financial plan covers what else belongs in that conversation.
Where Professional Advice Adds Value
We should be straightforward about our position here. Money Path takes on clients who have been through this, and some of them arrive because a succession was handled badly. That gives us an obvious interest in the subject, so treat the advice above on its merits rather than because we published it.
What we would say is that the same standards apply to us. Ask us what our succession arrangements are. Ask what we would propose changing in your portfolio and what it would cost you in tax to do it. Ask what the fee covers and whether it is changing. Any adviser worth engaging should welcome all three questions, and any adviser who bristles at them has answered a different question.
Where we do add value in these situations is in the transition itself. Reconstructing a plan from an incomplete file, working out what the previous strategy was actually trying to achieve before changing any of it, and modelling the tax cost of any restructure before recommending one rather than after. A surprising amount of the damage done in these handovers comes from a new adviser rebuilding a portfolio without understanding why it was built that way. Our guide on whether you should change advisers deals with the related question of when moving is the right call anyway.
Frequently asked questions
What happens to my investments if my financial adviser retires?
Nothing moves. Your superannuation stays in its fund, your investments stay on their platform, and your insurance stays in force with the same insurer. An adviser advises on your assets rather than holding them, so a change of adviser does not change where your money sits or who holds it.
Do I have to accept the new adviser?
No. You are a client, not an asset that transfers with the business. You can meet the new adviser and continue, or decline and engage someone else. The practical mechanism is the ongoing fee consent, which you must give for fees to continue being deducted.
Can my ongoing fees keep being charged after the practice is sold?
Only with your consent. Since 10 January 2025, ongoing fee arrangements require your written consent to be entered into or renewed, and consent to deduct fees from your account. Consent ceases to have effect 150 days after the relevant anniversary, and if it is not obtained in time the arrangement terminates automatically. Charging after termination is a breach.
Should I be worried if the new adviser wants to change my portfolio?
Not automatically, but ask questions. Moving platforms or products can trigger capital gains tax and transaction costs, and a restructure has to be justified by your circumstances rather than by the new firm’s preferred systems. Ask what it will cost you in tax and fees and what you gain in return, and expect a specific answer.
How do I check the new adviser is properly qualified?
Look them up on ASIC’s Financial Advisers Register, which shows qualifications, licensee history and any disciplinary action. Also confirm which Australian financial services licensee they operate under, because that is the entity legally responsible for the advice.
What if my adviser retires without arranging a successor?
Contact the licensee, not the practice, since the licensee is responsible for continuity of service. Ask who is now responsible for your file and stop any ongoing fee that is being charged where no service is being provided. Then take your time choosing a new adviser rather than deciding in the first few weeks.
If something goes wrong with old advice, who do I complain to?
Generally the licensee that was responsible for the advice at the time it was given, rather than whoever holds your file now. All licensees must belong to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. Keep a record of who your adviser and licensee were during each period, as it makes this much easier later.
Taking the next step
If a letter like this has arrived, the useful response is not to panic and not to sign. It is to meet the new adviser, verify them, understand the fee and ask what they intend to change before agreeing to anything.
And if no letter has arrived, the useful thing is to ask your adviser what happens when they stop. It is a five minute conversation that determines how the next twenty years of your advice relationship goes.
General advice warning: This article contains general information only. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It describes ongoing fee arrangement obligations as amended by the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms, which apply from 10 January 2025 with transitional arrangements, and adviser population figures current at the time of writing. Regulatory requirements and industry data change, and the terms of any particular practice sale or licensee arrangement will vary. You should consider whether the information is appropriate for you and seek personal advice from a licensed financial adviser, and confirm any tax consequences with a registered tax agent, before acting.
