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aboutus

We’ve been providing expert financial advice for more than 45 years. Over the course of that time, we’ve learnt a lot about what our clients want and need, and how we can best serve their needs.

Intro

As a family-run practice, we’ve been offering friendly, professional financial advice since 1978.

We specialise in providing expert independent advice, focusing on clients with more complex financial planning needs—where we feel we can add the most value. By taking the time to understand your unique circumstances, ambitions, and attitudes, we recommend tailored financial solutions to meet both your current and future needs.

Our key areas of expertise include:

 

  • Creating your financial plan/roadmap: We develop a clear, tailored financial plan to provide you with clarity and direction for your future.

  • Pension and retirement planning: Helping you prepare for a comfortable and secure future.

  • Investment advice: Ensuring your investments are working hard for you.

  • Mortgage advice: Our dedicated mortgage adviser can help you find the right solution, whether you're purchasing a new home or remortgaging.

  • Ongoing care and support: We maintain and adapt your financial plan as your circumstances, tax rules, and market conditions evolve, providing proactive advice and reassurance every step of the way.

 

We work best with clients who have more intricate financial needs and typically manage assets of £250,000 or more. This allows us to provide the level of detailed, personalised advice that is necessary to achieve your financial goals.

Our approach
 

Based in Lonsdale Gardens, Tunbridge Wells, we’re proud of our approach, which is built on our core company values:

  • We treat clients as we would want to be treated: You can expect honesty, transparency, and respect.

  • We cut out the jargon: Our recommendations are always explained in straightforward, simple terms.

  • We’re committed to getting the right outcome: Our focus is on achieving the best financial results for you.

  • We use technology to enhance your experience: Including tools like Voyant, one of the UK's leading financial forecasting platforms, to help you visualise your financial future.

 

Your first meeting is always at our expense, and there’s no obligation to proceed if you feel our service isn’t the right fit for you.

Image by Jez Timms

IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT MONEY

"We appreciate financial planning is not all about your money – it’s about you, your life and what you want to get out of it. So whether that is working towards a happy retirement, financial security or protecting your loved ones – we can help make it happen."

Our story

 

In 1978, John Hitchell, with a young family to support, had just taken the difficult decision to leave a secure job with a high street bank and was looking for the next challenge. He had hated the corporate, target-driven culture of the banking industry and felt there must be a better way to treat clients.

 

It was fair to say the bank was very traditional, even insisting that John shave off his beloved beard as ‘it was scaring the older customers.’ However, the final straw was having found his dream home, his mortgage application being denied because it ‘had more bedrooms than he needed,’ only to discover that his manager had bought the house instead.

 

Unsure what to do next, John applied for a job advertised in the local paper for a self-employed financial adviser, and one thing led to another. John's personality and his desire to help people meant that he thrived in this new environment. Things were very different in those days, but many of the clients he met in these early years became good friends, and many of their families remain clients to this day.

John was very proud when two of his sons, James and Richard, joined the business. They are both Chartered Financial Planners demonstrating how far the industry has evolved since the early days when John first saw that advert in the paper.

The business has continued to grow and alongside James and Richard, is Rob the Mortgage & Protection Adviser, Louisa the Practice Manager, and the administration team - Jane, Natalie and Sarah.

John’s ethos, of treating clients as though they were family, is still very much alive and practised by James and Richard today. Hitchell Associates continues to thrive, continuing John’s legacy of providing people with expert financial advice and always striving to go the extra mile.

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