As a family-run practice, we have offered a friendly professional advisory service to clients since 1978.
As well as offering expert independent advice, we place the needs of our clients at the heart of the business. By getting to know the individual situation, ambitions and attitudes of every client who comes to us, we can apply our expertise to recommend financial solutions that meet both present and future needs.
Based in Lonsdale Gardens in Tunbridge Wells, our approach is based on our company values;
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We always treat clients as we would want to be treated.
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We promise to cut out the jargon and always explain our recommendations in simple terms.
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We work hard to get the right client outcome
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We use technology to provide a better service - including Voyant - one of the UK's leading financial forecasting tools.
The initial meeting is always at our expense and there is never any obligation to proceed further if you decide our service is not for you.
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.