Where your money is.

Structurally, no, your account is in your own name at a third-party custodian. I direct how the money in it is invested. I cannot withdraw it or send it anywhere. The one exception is my quarterly fee, which you authorize in writing and which appears on every custodian statement. That is not just a policy I have chosen to follow; it is how the arrangement is set up.

If you have ever read a story about an adviser who took client money, that story is almost always about an arrangement where the adviser controlled the account and could withdraw from it. That is not how this firm is set up, and under our agreement it cannot be.

US-headquartered custodian and broker-dealer, with offices around the world. Suited to actively managed and internationally aware portfolios. Your account there is in your name, not the firm's, not a pooled fund. Statements arrive from them, not from me.

You can see every holding, every value, and every transaction at the custodian, in real time. You're not obligated to go through me for any of it, and you don't have to take my word for it; you can go to the custodian directly. Your custodian login is your own. My role is what to buy and when; visibility is yours.

Your assets sit at the custodian, in your name, separate from Life Story Wealth Planning entirely. If the firm were to close for any reason, your account remains where it is. You would either self-direct going forward or engage a different adviser. The assets themselves do not move because of anything happening to my firm.

They are about adviser control. Someone had discretion over an account they should not have had discretion over, and it went badly. The structural safeguard removes that failure mode: if I had never intended to act on client money and could never do so structurally, the failure mode does not exist.