Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

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Hugh Prolly-Wright
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Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by Hugh Prolly-Wright »

Have a friend who wants to fire his financial adviser and move to Vanguard. I told him I thought that with an account value of a certain amount ( > 1 million?) they will move assets on your behalf; no need to do so yourself. Anyone have experience with this?
UpperNwGuy
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by UpperNwGuy »

Are you asking if Vanguard will transfer the funds from some other brokerage?
tibbitts
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by tibbitts »

Hugh Prolly-Wright wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:39 pm Have a friend who wants to fire his financial adviser and move to Vanguard. I told him I thought that with an account value of a certain amount ( > 1 million?) they will move assets on your behalf; no need to do so yourself. Anyone have experience with this?
There are many reports of Vanguard facilitating fund transfers, and I'm not sure it's even based on minimum account values - and I'm almost certain it's not based on a $1M threshold.

And as always I'll give my contrarian story of Vanguard and Fidelity both telling me there was nothing they could do with my inherited taxable brokerage account. They both confirmed that the transfer absolutely had to be initiated at the other brokerage and there was nothing they could do to assist. The balance to be transferred was one digit short of your seven-figure suggestion, although my Vanguard assets were already more than that.
student
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by student »

My experience with taxable accounts and IRA accounts, you can just ask the receiving brokerage to start the process. It is easy unless the current account contains investments that cannot be transferred.
sycamore
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by sycamore »

If by "move funds" you mean to transfer assets in-kind to Vanguard, then Vanguard will happily do that. As will most any other broker! Doesn't really matter how much you're moving.

Your friend would need to open an account before beginning to move funds. If your friend has a taxable, Trad IRA and Roth IRA through the FA's broker, then your friend needs to open one of each at Vanguard.

Vanguard has an asset transfer form that you'd fill out yourself or you'd call Vanguard and ask for a transfer specialist. There are often reports of long wait times but I don't know if that's still the case.

Side note: depending on how much money your friend has, an asset transfer bonus may be available from other brokers. Vanguard doesn't play the bonus game, Fidelity rarely does, but Schwab and E*Trade do. Might be worth looking into.
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JaneyLH
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by JaneyLH »

student wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 2:07 pm My experience with taxable accounts and IRA accounts, you can just ask the receiving brokerage to start the process. It is easy unless the current account contains investments that cannot be transferred.
+1 I was able to have Vanguard transfer all of my investments except a partnership investment my former financial advisor got me into. I had to cash that out before it could be transferred.
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RickBoglehead
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by RickBoglehead »

What does "do it yourself" mean?
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Da5id
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by Da5id »

Eagle33 wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:02 am How to transfer money to Vanguard
Yep I've done a bunch inherited accounts, Vanguard was very helpful. Lots of handholding if needed (perhaps related to asset amount). Place I was pulling from charged a $125 fee, glad to have the money out of there.
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bertilak
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by bertilak »

The only difficulty I can foresee is that the originating brokerage needs to be sure the transfer is legitimate.

Is this due to a probate action? Is it transferring to a defined beneficiary? Might you need to provide a death certificate? If none of those, are the registration details (name, ssn, etc.) the same on both ends? Is there a trust involved? Once things like that are squared away Vanguard will do all the mechanical things needed to facilitate the transfer.
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MahoningValley
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by MahoningValley »

Everything other than Stock, EFTs, CDs or Treasury Bills/Bonds should be liquidated and transferred as CASH to make life easier. Be sure to print, sign and date your forms. They usually need a copy of the previous months account statement from the transferring company. My IRA transfers took 2 weeks to complete.
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Toons
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by Toons »

I just transferred 2 long term hold mutual funds(twenty five years)
From Wells Fargo To Vanguard(In Kind)
Partial Transfer out of account.
Took about 5 days
Cost basis included
All electronic
Simple
Contact Them
:wink:
"One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity" –Bruce Lee
bradinsky
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by bradinsky »

We transferred five total accounts from EJ to Charles Schwab. We initiated the transfer at Schwab and they took care of everything. It couldn’t have been easier!
mkc
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Re: Will Vanguard move funds on your behalf?

Post by mkc »

MahoningValley wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 10:38 am Everything other than Stock, EFTs, CDs or Treasury Bills/Bonds should be liquidated and transferred as CASH to make life easier.
Could generate a capital gains tax issue if you don't include mutual funds in the "other than list".

The receiving/pulling firm can tell you what will and what won't be able to transfer in kind. No reason to liquidate those investments which will transfer.
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