- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Mission Viejo business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
Two questions dominate the financial picture in Mission Viejo. The first is what happens to a house bought in the 1970s or 1980s that is now the largest asset the family owns — Proposition 19, the capital-gains arithmetic on a sale, the step-up at death. The second comes from Saddleback College staff, city employees and County of Orange workers, who are in three different retirement systems that behave nothing alike.
Start with the honest part: we are 39.4 miles from Mission Viejo
We do not have an office in Mission Viejo, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 39.4 miles away. If a firm's Mission Viejo 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 Mission Viejo 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 Mission Viejo
Mission Viejo was a single master plan. The Mission Viejo Company began building on the old Rancho Mission Viejo land in 1966, laid out the curving spine of Marguerite Parkway, La Paz Road and Crown Valley Parkway, and the city did not incorporate until 1988 — by which point it was largely finished. Lake Mission Viejo sits at the centre of it, a private lake whose association membership attaches to the property rather than to the person who lives there, which is a small illustration of a much larger point: in this city a great deal of what a household owns and owes is bolted to the deed.
That matters because the first buyers are still here. A three-bedroom bought on Olympiad Road in 1978 has been through five decades of appreciation and a Proposition 13 assessment that never kept up with it, and the people who own it are now in their seventies and eighties. Their adult children are frequently buying back into the same tracts at current prices. So the conversations run in both directions at once: how a parent passes a house to a child without detonating the assessed value, whether the primary-residence exclusion covers a gain this size and what happens to the rest of it, and whether it is better to sell now or hold for the basis step-up. Those are questions with a tax answer and an emotional answer, and they are rarely the same answer. Proposition 19 · Capital gains in California.
The working side of the city is institutional rather than industrial. Saddleback College sits on Marguerite Parkway, Mission Hospital anchors the medical corridor off Crown Valley, and the city, the county and two school districts employ a large number of the people living in the tracts around them. If you are one of them, the plan you are actually building on is a formula somebody else calculates — and the 403(b) or 457(b) parked next to it is the account that nobody audits on your behalf. We read both, and we sell neither.
The local employer base
Saddleback College
One of the two campuses of the South Orange County Community College District. Faculty are CalSTRS members, classified staff are CalPERS, and most have a 403(b) or a 457(b) available on top. Which of those two to fill first is a real decision with a real answer. 403(b) plans · 457(b) plans.
Mission Hospital
The hospital on Crown Valley Parkway and its surrounding medical offices are the largest private employer base in the city. Hospital and physician-group staff are typically in a 403(b) or a 401(k) rather than a public pension — a balance you own and must manage, not a benefit somebody computes for you. Healthcare guide.
City of Mission Viejo and County of Orange
City staff are CalPERS through the city's own contract. County employees are in OCERS, which is a separate system under a separate statute — not a CalPERS branch. Households with one of each in them need one plan, not two. OCERS · CalPERS.
Saddleback Valley Unified and Capistrano Unified
The city is split between two districts, both large. Certificated staff are CalSTRS; classified staff — aides, office personnel, maintenance, bus drivers — are CalPERS. The 403(b) products sold on campus vary enormously in cost, and nobody at the district is obliged to tell you which is which.
Public pensions and rollovers
Three systems meet in this city and they are genuinely different animals. CalSTRS covers certificated school and community-college staff. CalPERS covers city employees and classified school staff, through each employer's own contract. OCERS — the Orange County Employees Retirement System — covers County of Orange employees and a roster of participating agencies, and it operates under the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937, the same statute behind LACERA. It has its own board, its own funding and its own tiers; it is not CalPERS with a different name, and the reciprocity rules between them are the thing that catches people who moved from a county job to a city job or the other way round. OCERS explained · CalPERS · CalSTRS.
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 Mission Viejo 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.
Mission Viejo questions
We bought here in 1977 and want the house to go to our children. What actually happens to the tax bill?
Two separate things happen and people run them together. The property tax assessment is governed by Proposition 19, which since 2021 has narrowed the parent-to-child exclusion sharply — the child generally has to move in and claim it as a principal residence, and even then only part of the value is excluded. The income tax question is basis: an asset inherited at death generally takes a stepped-up basis, so the decades of gain that would be taxable on a lifetime sale may not be. Those two facts frequently point in opposite directions. We will map your version of it and then send you to a CPA or an estate attorney to execute, because that is their job and not ours. Proposition 19 · California estate basics.
I am at Saddleback College with a 403(b) and a 457(b). Which one should I be funding?
They have separate contribution limits, which means a saver with room can use both — and that is the first thing many people do not realise. The bigger difference is on the way out: governmental 457(b) money is generally reachable after you separate from service without the early-withdrawal penalty that applies to a 403(b), which makes it the natural bridge for anyone planning to retire before 59½. Then there is cost. The menu inside each plan is set by the vendors your employer signed, and the spread between the cheapest and the most expensive option in a school 403(b) is routinely large enough to matter more than the choice of plan. Bring both statements.
I worked for the county and then for a city. Do the two pensions talk to each other?
Often, yes — that is what reciprocity is for, and it can preserve your entry-date terms and let final compensation from one system count in the other. But it is not automatic, it depends on the timing between the two jobs, and OCERS and CalPERS each have their own rules about it. Get it confirmed in writing by both systems before you file for anything. What we do is model the combined result against everything else you own, so the retirement date and the survivor election get chosen with the whole picture visible.
Do you actually meet clients from Mission Viejo, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 39.4 miles from Mission Viejo — 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 Mission Viejo 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.