- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Granada Hills business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
We work with Granada Hills households in the middle of the expensive years: two incomes, a mortgage, teenagers, and often a parent who now needs help. A large share are educators, nurses or municipal employees with a pension on one side and a 403(b) nobody has ever explained on the other. The question is almost always whether the arrangement they have improvised over fifteen years is actually a plan.
Start with the honest part: we are 44.9 miles from Granada Hills
We do not have an office in Granada Hills, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 44.9 miles away. If a firm's Granada Hills 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 Granada Hills 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 Granada Hills
Granada Hills is family territory. The grid between Devonshire and Rinaldi is post-war tract housing bought by people who intend to stay; north of Rinaldi the lots get larger and some are still horse-zoned, and the streets end against the hills. Granada Hills Charter is the neighbourhood's anchor institution and one of the largest charter schools in the state, which creates a genuinely local financial question: charter school employees are not automatically in the same retirement arrangement as district employees, because a California charter elects whether to participate in CalSTRS or CalPERS. If you teach at a charter, the honest answer to "am I in CalSTRS?" is on your pay stub, not in an assumption.
The rest of the working population commutes: over the 118 to Chatsworth and Simi Valley, down the 405 to the Westside, or across to Burbank. A large number work in healthcare — the hospitals and clinics through Northridge, Mission Hills and Panorama City — where the retirement plan is a hospital 403(b) or 401(k) and there is no pension at all. Two-income households at this median frequently have four or five retirement accounts between them and no single view of the whole.
Then there is the squeeze. College is arriving, the parents' house in the Valley is becoming a Proposition 19 question, and the household is funding both ends at once. Those are separable problems and they get solved in a particular order. Supporting parents while saving · 529 plans in California · Proposition 19 and the family home.
The local employer base
Granada Hills Charter and LAUSD campuses
District staff are CalSTRS or CalPERS. Charter employees should confirm which system, if either, their employer participates in — charters elect. Both groups are sold 403(b) and 457(b) products on site, and the spread between the cheapest and dearest is large. 457(b) basics.
Valley hospitals and clinics
Nurses, technicians and therapists working through Northridge, Mission Hills and Panorama City are in private hospital 403(b) or 401(k) plans, not CalPERS. Changing systems mid-career leaves a trail of stranded accounts. Consolidating them.
City and county employees
City staff living here are LACERS members and may use the city's 457(b) deferred compensation plan; sworn officers and firefighters belong to LAFPP instead; county employees are LACERA members. Three systems, three sets of tiers and survivor elections. LACERS · LACERA.
Self-employed trades and professionals
Contractors, designers, therapists and consultants working from home with 1099 income and no employer plan. A SEP-IRA is the easy answer and a solo 401(k) is usually the better one, particularly once a spouse is on the payroll. Solo 401(k).
Public pensions and rollovers
Granada Hills is a genuinely mixed neighbourhood for retirement systems. CalSTRS and CalPERS through the schools, LACERS and LAFPP through the City of Los Angeles, LACERA through the county, and private 403(b) or 401(k) plans through the hospitals. A two-earner household here often straddles two of them, and the survivor and beneficiary elections in each are made independently — which is exactly how a couple ends up with two default choices that contradict each other. Survivor elections, explained.
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 Granada Hills 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.
Granada Hills questions
I teach at a charter school. Am I in CalSTRS or not?
Check the deduction line on your pay stub before anything else. California charter schools elect whether to participate in CalSTRS or CalPERS, and the answer is not uniform across the sector. If you are in neither, your entire retirement rests on whatever defined contribution plan the school offers plus Social Security, which changes the savings rate you need. Bring the stub and the plan document and we will read them with you at no charge.
We have two kids close together. Do we fund 529s or pay for college out of income?
Both, usually, in a particular ratio — and know that California is one of the states offering no state income tax deduction for 529 contributions, so the benefit here is the tax-free growth, not a deduction at the front. That makes the useful contribution window earlier than most people assume. 529s in California · Run the timeline.
My mother's house is here and she wants to leave it to us. What should we be asking?
Ask what happens to the assessed value. Proposition 19 changed the rules for parent-to-child transfers in 2021, and whether the property keeps its base year value now depends on how the property is used afterwards. It is a legal and tax question for an estate attorney and a CPA. Our plain-language summary is a starting point, not the answer.
Do you actually meet clients from Granada Hills, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 44.9 miles from Granada Hills — 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 Granada Hills 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.