- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Avalon business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
Avalon residents have unusually poor access to any financial professional, and that is the honest starting point rather than the mileage. There is no branch, no walk-in advisory office and no way to see anyone on the mainland without giving up most of a day. We work with Avalon households by video, and in person when you are already crossing. Atendemos en español.
Start with the honest part: we are 52.7 miles from Avalon
We do not have an office in Avalon, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 52.7 miles away. If a firm's Avalon page does not tell you where its actual office is, that is worth noticing — the August 2026 teardown of this market found out-of-area firms running dozens of city pages each, including one with a Norwalk page containing nothing about Norwalk.
So the question is not proximity. It is whether what we do is worth the drive, a video call, or us coming to you — because we do all three, and evenings run by video. Two things travel perfectly well over distance and are unusually hard to find at any distance: a fee schedule published on the website, and a fiduciary standard you can hold us to in writing. Neither requires us to be down the street.
Is your financial advisor in Avalon actually a fiduciary?
Most people assume yes. The answer depends on how the person is registered. An investment adviser representative owes a fiduciary duty — care and loyalty, across the whole relationship, and it cannot be waived. A registered representative of a broker-dealer is held to Regulation Best Interest, which attaches at the moment of a recommendation and, in the SEC's own words, imposes no duty to monitor an account absent an agreement.
Both can be good at the job. They are not the same promise. You can check any firm in ten minutes: Form ADV at adviserinfo.sec.gov, individuals on BrokerCheck, and the Form CRS. Ours is linked here, and the standard is spelled out on our fiduciary page. Aduna Capital is fee-only: paid by clients, by nobody else, with no commissions and no proprietary products. The full comparison is here →
Who we work with in Avalon
Say the difficult part first. Avalon is on Santa Catalina Island, roughly twenty-two miles off the coast, and there is no road to it. Access is the Catalina Express from the Downtown Long Beach landing or from San Pedro, the seasonal service from Dana Point, or a helicopter from Long Beach or San Pedro. The crossing is about an hour each way in reasonable weather and it does not run in all of it. Inside the city most people get about by golf cart. What that means for this page is simple: an Avalon household cannot casually see a financial adviser, a fee-only one, a fiduciary one or any other kind, because there is not one here and getting to the mainland costs a working day. We are not going to dress that up. Our meetings with Avalon clients happen by video, with documents signed electronically, and in person when you are coming over anyway — we can meet you at the Long Beach landing, or at our office in Norwalk if you are already driving inland.
The economy is seasonal tourism and the infrastructure that keeps a town of 3,447 running on an island. Hotels, restaurants, tour and dive operators, the harbour and mooring services, retail along Crescent Avenue, and the hospitality operations of the Santa Catalina Island Company. The Catalina Island Conservancy manages the great majority of the island as protected land. Southern California Edison generates the island's electricity and runs the water system. Avalon K-12 School is operated by Long Beach Unified. Catalina Island Medical Center is the only hospital. Two consequences follow that no mainland page has to think about. Income is seasonal — heavy in summer, thin in winter — so a cash reserve here has to carry a household through a season rather than a month, and the retirement contribution has to be made while the money is coming in. And the cost of living is high because everything arrives on a barge, which means saving the same percentage of income takes more discipline here than the median figure on this page suggests. With 55.1% of Avalon identifying as Hispanic or Latino, a good deal of that conversation happens in Spanish, and our written material exists in Spanish originally rather than in translation. Todo en español.
One more thing, carefully. Property on Catalina does not always work the way mainland property does. The Catalina Island Conservancy holds and manages most of the island, and within Avalon a meaningful number of homes are held on long-term leases rather than in fee simple. If that describes yours, it can affect what a lender will finance, what the interest is actually worth, and what passes to your children and on what terms — and a leasehold interest is still an asset that has to appear in an estate plan rather than being assumed away. We are not going to tell you which category your property falls into from a website. Your deed or lease, a title company that works this island regularly, and a local real estate attorney will tell you definitively, and that is where that question belongs. Once it is answered, fitting it into the rest of the plan is ours. California estate basics · Working with trusts.
The local employer base
The visitor economy
Hotels, restaurants, tour and dive operators, retail on Crescent Avenue, and the Santa Catalina Island Company's hospitality operations. Seasonal and hourly, with payrolls that swell in summer and shrink in winter. Almost none of these employers offers a 401(k), which makes the state programme the default. Hotels · Restaurants.
City of Avalon and Avalon K-12 School
The city runs the harbour, public works and municipal services with a small staff. The school is operated by Long Beach Unified, so certificated staff there are CalSTRS members and classified staff are in CalPERS — the same systems as on the mainland, administered from an office you have to take a boat to reach. Long Beach Unified.
Catalina Island Medical Center
The island's hospital and clinic, and a nonprofit employer rather than a public one, so staff are in an employer-sponsored plan rather than a public pension. It is also the only medical facility here, which makes continuity of health coverage a planning question with a practical edge rather than an abstract one. Healthcare employers.
Southern California Edison
SCE generates the island's power and operates the Avalon water system, so a number of well-paid utility jobs sit in a town this size. Those employees are in a large private employer's retirement arrangements rather than in a public system, and the plan documents are worth reading rather than assuming. Southern California Edison.
Public pensions and rollovers
The public systems that reach Avalon are the ordinary ones arriving by boat: CalPERS for the city's own staff, and CalSTRS and CalPERS for the Long Beach Unified employees at Avalon School. Everyone else is in a private plan or in nothing. The island-specific point is administrative rather than actuarial — when you leave a job here, the former employer's plan office, the recordkeeper and the custodian are all on the mainland, and every one of them will happily send you a cheque, which is the single most expensive way to move retirement money because of the 20% mandatory withholding. Do it as a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer, and do it before the address on file goes stale. The rollover guide.
If you are leaving a job, the rollover decision is where the most money is quietly lost — the 20% mandatory withholding under IRC § 3405(c) catches people who take the cheque themselves. The four options, step by step · Seven costly mistakes · Run the numbers. For public employees: CalPERS, CalSTRS, LACERA and OCERS explained.
A first conversation about Avalon money, at no cost
Fifteen minutes on the phone. If your question has a short answer you will get it on the call, and if we are not the right firm for you we will say that too.
Our fees, published
No competing advisor page in this area publishes its fees. Here are ours.
| What | Fee |
|---|---|
| Investment management | 1.5% to 2.0% of assets per year; Advisers may set a rate below the standard schedule, as low as 0%, at their discretion — and whatever rate applies to you is disclosed in writing before you engage. Our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5, states the fee as up to 2.00% of assets per year, subject to negotiation; the firm may waive all or part of it. Generally billed quarterly in arrears |
| Account minimum | No minimum account balance |
| Commissions and product fees | None — we are fee-only |
| Solicitor compensation | May be received or paid under disclosed arrangements |
| Initial conversation | Free, 15 minutes, no obligation |
Complete fee details in our Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.
Avalon questions
There is no adviser on the island. How would this actually work?
Almost entirely remotely, and we would rather describe it accurately than promise you something local. Meetings are by video, screen shared, at times that work around a season. Account opening and paperwork are electronic. Your assets are held at an independent custodian that sends you its own statements — we never take custody of client money, which is a protection that matters more, not less, when you cannot walk into an office. When you are crossing anyway we can meet you at the Long Beach landing, or at 12838 Rosecrans Avenue in Norwalk. Our fiduciary standard.
My house is on a lease rather than a deed. Does that change my estate plan?
Probably, and the specifics are not something to take from a website. A leasehold has a term, conditions on transfer, and an underlying landowner, and each of those can affect financing, what happens on death, and what a beneficiary actually receives. Get the documents read by a real estate attorney who works Catalina regularly and by a title company familiar with the island. What we can do once that is settled is make sure the interest is accounted for in the plan rather than treated as though it were an ordinary fee-simple house — because the difference changes how much liquidity the rest of the plan has to provide.
Almost all my income comes in during the summer. How am I supposed to save?
By saving in season and budgeting out of season, which is the reverse of how most advice is written. Fix a percentage of every summer pay period that goes straight out to a Roth IRA and a reserve before anything else, and size the reserve against a whole winter rather than against three months of expenses. If your employer registers with the state programme, the payroll deduction only runs while you are on payroll, so a seasonal worker who relies on it alone will contribute for part of the year and then stop — which is exactly why an account you control yourself matters here. Why our minimum is $50 a month.
Do you actually meet clients from Avalon, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 52.7 miles from Avalon — clients come to us, we come to them, or we meet by video, and evening appointments can be arranged. What we will not do is claim an office in Avalon that does not exist. Call (657) 571-2607. We are registered as an investment adviser in California.
What is the account minimum?
There isn't one to open. We ask for $50 a month of continuing deposits, because a plan you do not fund is not a plan. Our fee is 1.5% to 2.0% of assets under management per year, billed quarterly, and it is published — which is more than most firms in this market will tell you before a meeting.
¿Atienden en español?
Sí. Atendemos en español, y buena parte de nuestro material existe en español, escrito originalmente, no traducido por máquina.