We moved into Sundial House on 1st September 1996.
I remember it well; the thrill of starting work in a building that we owned ourselves and which we could arrange to suit our own requirements.
So much better than the home office we had before where the paperwork seemed to migrate all over the house and where client and team meetings were held in the dining room.
Like any building that had been empty for some time, work was needed to bring it up to scratch.
One of the jobs was to replace the bathroom fittings and you won’t be surprised to learn that we employed a plumber to do the work. We did notice that the water pressure in the building seemed very low. We were told that this was due to small pipes coming into the building and that replacement would be very expensive.
Over the last 14 years we have tolerated the water problem that the lack of pressure created and learned to live with it.
Filling up the kettle after someone had flushed the loo would take quite some time. Last year the hedge between our office and the building next door caught fire and because we were fortunately passing at the time, we were able to take buckets of water from our building and put the fire out before the fire service arrived.
Thinking back that would have been much easier had we been able to benefit from better water pressure!
Last week one of our taps sprang a leak.
We called in a local plumber who speedily fixed the problem. He did however wonder why the water pressure was so low. We told him what we had been told many years before.
He actually thought it might have been down to the fact that only one of two stopcocks was turned on! One quick turning on later and hey presto normal water pressure to the building is restored.
Now leaving aside the combined feelings of stupidity (14 years of low water pressure) and elation (yes, elation at normal water pressure!) what on earth has this got to do with Financial Planning?
Well simply that we think the lesson here is to challenge what you are told. It doesn’t matter if it is your Plumber, your Dentist, your Solicitor or your Financial Planner telling you something – ask questions and challenge what you are being told.
Don’t ever be embarrassed to do so. After all you want to get the right answers and that requires asking the questions
