The following article first appeared in the summer of 1992 edition of
"The Balanced Report".
It is still appropriate today.

Every few weeks someone comes to us for advice, after it is too late to do anything about his or her problem. In these cases it is very sad and frustrating to have to tell the human it is too late to change what has happened. Of course, they dont want to hear us tell them "You should have seen us before you signed that contract, or filed that tax return". In a recent case, a client could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by structuring the sale of his business differently. In some simple cases it is just a matter of getting advice on how to treat a particular income amount for taxation purposes, or about the term of a mortgage renewal. In these situations we may do very little after the fact, but we might see that they dont contruct a similar bad choice and reorganize their affairs or investments to avoid problems in the future.

Get advice from a qualified Financial Planner BEFORE proceeding with any of the following:

Selling or starting a business
Accepting a retirement offer
Marriage/Re-Marriage/Separation
Selling a property other than your principal residence
Changing your country of residence
Receiving an inheritance
Receiving a windfall, or lottery winnings
Purchasing a major investment
Incorporating, or starting a partnership venture
Taking out a mortgage/loan or a renewal of
Purchasing Life or Disability Insurance
Signing a new will

There are most likely others, but these are the most frequent requests and the ones where we may help the most. In many cases, we supply these services without charge to clients for whom we handle all of their investments and insurance. In other cases, where there is a fee involved our clients tell us that the advice saved them far more than the cost of our services.