Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: nothing happens to your money — it stays at the same custodian, in the same accounts, in the same positions. What changes is who advises you, and here is the part the succession letter does not say: you were not assigned to the successor, you were introduced to them. A retiring adviser’s client relationships are a business asset, normally transferred to a successor under a purchase or continuity arrangement, and the successor has a direct economic reason to keep you paying. That is not a scandal. It is simply a fact you should know before you treat the introduction as a decision that has already been made.
Your three options, and none of them is urgent
Stay with the successor. Often the right answer, especially if the firm, the fee and the plan are unchanged and the successor has been in your reviews for a year already. Choose a different adviser. Your accounts do not move until you sign a transfer form; until then everything continues exactly as it is. Take the moment to change fee models entirely — a succession is the natural point to ask whether ongoing AUM billing still fits, or whether flat-fee or hourly advice would do the same job.
Optional next step
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Ask an adviser how this choice fits your broader retirement and financial plan.
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Expect questions about your situation, your name, email and phone, and phone verification by text. A match is not guaranteed.
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How our partner relationships workWhat to ask the successor, in the first meeting
Is my fee schedule unchanged, in writing? A succession is a common moment for a repricing, and Form ADV Part 2A Item 5.A requires the adviser to provide the fee schedule and to disclose whether fees are negotiable. Is the firm the same legal entity, or is this a new adviser? If it is a new firm, you should be given a new Form ADV Part 2A and Form CRS — the email that asks for both. What would you change in my portfolio, and what does that cost me in tax? A new adviser implementing their own model in a taxable account is the largest hidden cost of any advisor change — why, and the four cases. How many households do you now serve? A successor absorbing a whole book at once is the most predictable cause of a service drop — the capacity warning signs.
Verify the successor the way you would verify a stranger
Because that is what they are. Run the same background check you would run on any new adviser: the registration, the disclosure history, the actual fee schedule, and whether they are a fiduciary in writing — the twenty-minute version and how to read what you find. If you decide to move, the mechanics are ordinary: the new firm pulls the accounts, and the old relationship ends with a dated letter. If your adviser has died rather than retired, the practical steps differ; if they have moved to another firm, the questions are different again.
If you do decide to move rather than meet the successor, the switching advisors cost calculator prices the move first, so the decision is made on a number rather than on the awkwardness of the moment.