New Features & Updates October 2019 – Commercial property purchase via a pension

Richard Lent

IMPORTANT – This user tip relates to an older version of Genovo. Although much of the content and many of the concepts still apply to the current version of Genovo, the screenshots and some instructions may no longer be accurate.

I joined Genovo earlier this year and part of my role is to maintain and develop the Genovo app. I’ve identified some enhancements that I’ve been working on, and will continue to do so over the coming weeks and months, the first of which is making it easier to write a report covering commercial property purchase through a SIPP or SSAS. It’s always been possible to produce this type of report in Genovo, but the new features and enhancements we’ve just added will make it even quicker and easier.

Client objectives

One of the first places you’ll see a change is in Client Objectives step of the Introduction section. Here you’ll find  a new standard advice option – ‘Purchase a commercial property using your pension fund’ – which is suitable for all scenarios, whether you’re advising a client to retain their existing plan(s) as it allows them to hold commercial property, or you’re advising them to switch to a new pension because it doesn’t.

On selecting the new advice option you can click ‘add kyc info’ in the usual way,  and you’ll be directed to a new page where you’ll be prompted to add some extra ‘colour and detail’ to the selected  objective.

Commercial property purchase via an existing pension scheme

If the existing plan is a SIPP or SSAS and you are happy that it remains suitable for your client, you can select the newly added ‘purchase a commercial property with’ recommended action within the Recommended Action step of the Review of Your Existing Pension section.

NB. Given you can only purchase a commercial property via a SIPP or a SSAS, this option will only be included in the drop down menu when a SIPP or a SSAS is selected.

Once selected, you are able to select / add advice reasons to justify the recommended action in the usual way. We have added a number of standard advice reasons for you to choose from, but remember you can always edit these or add your own.

Commercial property purchase following a transfer to a new pension

Given it is only possible to purchase a commercial property via a SIPP or SSAS, you may need to recommend that a client switches their existing pension assets into a SIPP or SSAS. If this is the case, you would approach this report like any other pension switching case (see row 27 or 36 of the Genovo Report Section Matrix) and select ‘switch’ as the recommended action in the Recommended Action step. You can then select / add all relevant advice reasons in the usual way, including this new one we’ve just added specifically for this scenario.

NB. Remember if you are recommending a pension switch you will need to add a New Pension Recommendation section as it’s here that you will include details of the new SIPP or SSAS you’re recommending.

New risk warnings & technical notes

We’ve also created a new risk warning snippet and technical notes snippet specifically relating to commercial property purchase via a pension. These snippets will be automatically triggered and included in your suitability report by any one of the following:

• Selection of the newly created client objective – ‘Purchase a commercial property using your pension fund’
• Selection of the newly created Recommended Action – ‘purchase a commercial property with’
• Selection of the new advice reason within the Recommended Action of Switch – ‘This plan does not allow you to purchase commercial property and therefore cannot meet your objectives’. 

Summary of all updates and enhancements

In addition to the above enhancements, we’ve also added a number of new advice options and advice reasons to various steps throughout the Report Builder and made a few minor tweaks to a couple of the existing snippets. Below is a summary of all of the changes that have been made.

Section Wizards

Section(s)	Step(s)	Update / Enhancement
Introduction	Client Objectives	A new client objective ‘Purchase a commercial property using your pension fund’ has been added.
Review of Your Existing Pension	Recommended Action	A new Recommended Action ‘purchase a commercial property with’ has been added.
Review of Your Existing Pension	Recommended Action	A new Advice Reason ‘This plan does not allow you to purchase commercial property and therefore cannot meet your objectives.’ has been added to ‘switch’.
New Pension Recommendation	Why Provider / Plan Key Disadvantages and Tax Implications	New commercial property purchase specific advice reasons have been added.
Recommended Investment Strategy	Why Investment Strategy	New commercial property purchase specific advice reasons have been added.
Important Information	Supporting Information	Most providers have a guide available that gives more specific information about how they administer property. We’ve therefore added a prompt for this to be included with your suitability report when presenting it to your client.
Important Information	Next Steps	New commercial property purchase specific advice options have been added.

Report Content Manager

Report Type(s)	Section(s)	Snippet Name	Update / Enhancement
Suitability Report	Risk Warnings	Commercial property purchase	This is a new snippet.
Suitability Report	Appendix - Product Information	SIPP	Updated with minor amendments.
Suitability Report	Appendix - Product Information	SSAS	Updated with minor amendments.
Suitability Report	Appendix - Technical Notes	Pension - Property Purchase	This is a new snippet.

Further Reading

We’ve also created a new Knowledge Base article that explains in more detail how to write a suitability report covering the purchase of a commercial property purchase via a pension.

Let us know what you think

As I mentioned earlier, this is the first of a number of updates and enhancements we have planned over the coming months. But if you’ve got any suggestions – no matter how big or small – as to how we can improve Genovo or there’s a new feature you’d like to see added, we’d love to hear from you. Send us a message with your thoughts and we promise we’ll get back to you.

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