Advice Doesn't Expire. Assumptions Do.

For years, one piece of financial planning advice was unquestionably right.

Today, for some people, it may no longer be.

Not because the advice was poor.

Because the assumptions changed.

Spend your savings first. Leave your pension until last.

It was sensible.

It was tax efficient.

And for many people, it was exactly the right thing to do.

Until it wasn't.

That doesn't mean the advice was wrong.

It means it belonged to a particular set of rules.

Financial planning has always worked like this.

We build strategies around today's rules.

Knowing that one day those rules may change.

The difficulty is that governments change rules.

Life changes.

Families change.

And sometimes a decision that was once entirely sensible quietly becomes less so.

What interests me isn't simply that pensions are changing from April 2027.

It's something much bigger than that.

It's how easily good advice becomes an assumption.

Once an assumption has been repeated often enough, we stop questioning it. We no longer remember why we made the decision. We simply continue making it because it has always seemed like the right thing to do.

The proposed inheritance tax changes are a perfect example.

For many years, pensions have sat outside most people's estates for inheritance tax purposes. As a result, advisers often recommended spending cash savings and ISAs first, allowing pension funds to remain untouched for as long as possible.

That wasn't a loophole.

It wasn't clever tax planning.

It was simply making sensible use of the rules that existed at the time.

From April 2027, those rules are expected to change.

Unused pension funds are expected to form part of many estates for inheritance tax purposes. For some families, that could significantly alter the most tax efficient way to pass wealth to the next generation.

The headlines naturally focus on pensions.

I'm not sure that's the real story.

The real story is that one change in legislation has challenged an assumption that many people have carried for years.

And pensions aren't unique.

Financial planning is full of assumptions that quietly become accepted truths.

• Property always goes up.

• We'll get round to updating the will.

• The children know what we want.

• Our retirement plan is still appropriate.

The most dangerous assumptions are the ones that still feel true.

Once those assumptions become familiar, they rarely get revisited. Not because they're right, but because they've become comfortable.

Perhaps that's what good financial planning really is.

Not finding rules that last forever.

But recognising when the rules have changed.

Sometimes the most valuable financial conversations aren't about discovering something new.

They're about recognising that something you once knew may no longer apply.

So perhaps the most important question isn't whether the pension rules are changing.

Perhaps it's this:

Which parts of your thinking still depend on yesterday's assumptions?