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Keelwick Financial planning · Woodside
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A plain cream wall with one empty brass hook and nothing hanging from it, a narrow oak shelf below holding only a sprig of green in a glass jar.

What we will not claim

A real planning practice in New York is registered. This one is not, and says so.

Who answers for a planning practice in New York, how to check a real one, and why this one prints no number.

AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.

What you will see advertised

“A registered investment adviser, approved by the SEC, with fully licensed planners.”

Quoted in order to be refused: this practice never says it, and the rest of this page says why.

A practice paid to advise people about investments, a written plan included, is an investment adviser. In New York it registers with the Attorney General until it manages $25 million and with the SEC after that, its planners register too, and no registration means anybody approved it. So this practice claims no registration, prints no number, and shows you how to look up a real one.

What the rules say

Each read against its source in October 2026.

  • An investment adviser is anyone who, for compensation, is in the business of advising others about the value of securities or about investing in them (15 U.S.C. 80b-2).
  • Investment advisers provide services ranging from a single financial plan for which a client pays a one-time fee to ongoing portfolio management, and every investment adviser owes its clients a fiduciary duty under the Advisers Act (Release IA-5248).
  • An adviser regulated by its home state may not register with the SEC unless it manages at least $25 million, and in New York, which does not examine mid-sized advisers, an adviser registers with the SEC from that point (15 U.S.C. 80b-3a).
  • It is unlawful for an investment adviser to do business in or from New York until it has filed a registration statement with the Department of Law (GBL § 359-eee).
  • An investment adviser representative in New York passes a securities law examination, or a set of three examinations, before registering (13 NYCRR 11.6).
  • An investment adviser files with the Department of Law a copy of any advertisement offering investment advisory services (GBL § 359-eee(8)).
  • A registered adviser may not represent or imply that the United States or any agency has sponsored, recommended or approved it or passed upon its abilities (15 U.S.C. 80b-8).

The sources, to read in full:

What we say instead

In New York, a practice that is paid to advise people about investments must register as an investment adviser: with the New York Attorney General's Investor Protection Bureau, or with the SEC once it manages $25 million or more. Each of its planners must also register and pass a securities law exam or hold a qualifying certification. This demonstration practice is fictional and holds no registration of any kind.

You can look up any real adviser, and the people who work for it, at adviserinfo.sec.gov, the SEC's public database, which covers advisers registered with a state as well. A real practice gives you its name exactly as it appears there; this demonstration practice will not be found, because it does not exist.

A real New York adviser also files its advertising, its website included, with the Attorney General. Nobody has filed or reviewed this site, because there is no adviser behind it.

  • We do not claim a registration, a license or an approval by anybody, or print any number for one.

Why planners' websites say it, and why it doesn't hold

Handing a stranger the outline of a household's money is a large step, and most people want some sign first that somebody official has looked the practice over. A short line under the logo, with a regulator's initials in it, seems to give that sign at a glance, which is why so many planners' sites open with one.

The rules above make that line something to check, not something to take on faith. A practice paid for advice about investments, a written plan included, files with the State before it does business, and the people who advise for it file as well, after the examination the fifth rule above describes. Filing is a condition of doing the work, and the last rule above forbids dressing it up as a seal of approval. For this practice any such line would be untrue: it is invented and holds nothing, and a number printed here would look exactly like a real one.

What a planning practice can honestly say, and do

What a site can honestly do is say what a real practice hands a client before any paid work starts, and admit that this one has none of it:

A real New York planning practice gives you its Form ADV brochure, which describes its services, its fees and its conflicts, before or when you sign. This demonstration practice has none, and this site shows no sample of one.

And it can say what a real adviser's public record holds, so that a reader knows what to look for when they look one up:

A real adviser's public record shows where it is registered and the documents it has filed, its brochure among them, and any disciplinary history; a person's record shows where they are registered and the firms they have worked for.

What to ask any planner

Put them to any planner before you sign anything. A plain answer tells you something, and so does a vague one.

  • Under what name does your practice appear at adviserinfo.sec.gov?
  • Is your practice registered with the Attorney General or with the SEC, and since when?
  • Is each planner I would meet registered too, and can I look each of them up?
  • Where can I read your Form ADV brochure before I sign anything?
  • Has your website been filed with the Attorney General, as your own advertising?

The other things this site will not claim

All fifteen refusals, on one page

Ask for a first meeting

A first meeting costs nothing, gives no advice and asks nothing of you afterwards: about forty-five minutes, at the office or by video. The office replies in office hours.

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