- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your San Juan Capistrano business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
San Juan Capistrano holds two very different financial pictures inside one small city. Families whose roots here go back generations, many of them first in their line to hold a retirement account and supporting parents at the same time. And households sitting on property that has been in the family for decades, asking what happens when it passes. We work with both, in English and in Spanish.
Start with the honest part: we are 45.5 miles from San Juan Capistrano
We do not have an office in San Juan Capistrano, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 45.5 miles away. If a firm's San Juan Capistrano 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 San Juan Capistrano 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 San Juan Capistrano
This is the oldest town in this part of the county and it is not a master plan. Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776 and the Serra Chapel inside it is the oldest building still in use in California. The Los Rios district across the tracks from the depot is among the oldest residential streets in the state and people still live on it. The Metrolink and Amtrak platform on Verdugo Street puts commuters on a train to Irvine, Santa Ana or Los Angeles. Ortega Highway climbs east into the canyon past stables, boarding facilities and the riding park, and there is still working agriculture — nurseries and remnant groves — out toward the Rancho Mission Viejo edge. Its neighbours were drawn by development companies in the 1970s and 1980s. This one accumulated.
At 38.9% Hispanic or Latino, San Juan Capistrano is by a wide margin the most Latino city in south Orange County, and the composition is different from what that number implies elsewhere in the region. A large share of these families have been here for generations, in the same neighbourhoods, often with property acquired long before the coastal premium arrived. That produces two conversations we have constantly and rarely in the same room. One is first-generation: a household building a first retirement account while sending money to parents, weighing whether to buy, and carrying financial responsibility in two directions at once. The other is generational property: a parcel or a house held forty years, an assessed value from another era, adult children with different plans for it, and no documents that say what should happen. First-generation wealth · Supporting your parents · Todo en español.
The employment base is smaller and older-fashioned than the neighbouring cities': the school district's central offices, the equestrian and agricultural trades, downtown retail and restaurants along Camino Capistrano and Del Obispo, construction and the specialty trades, and a large number of people who commute out. A lot of that work is paid on a 1099 or in cash, which means no employer plan, no match, and no automatic anything. That is the single most common reason a household here reaches sixty with equity in a property and nothing beside it.
The local employer base
Capistrano Unified School District
The district's central offices are here on Valle Road, and it is one of the largest districts in the state. Certificated staff are CalSTRS members, classified staff — office, maintenance, transportation, instructional aides — are CalPERS. Both have supplemental 403(b) options whose costs vary widely and are never compared for you.
Equestrian and agricultural trades
Stables and boarding operations along Ortega Highway, trainers, farriers, grooms, landscape and nursery work. Almost entirely self-employed or paid on a 1099, with no plan available at all. A SEP-IRA can be opened in an afternoon and takes far more than an IRA does. Landscaping · Business plans.
Downtown retail, restaurants and hospitality
Camino Capistrano, Del Obispo and the blocks around the Mission. Small employers, tipped income, and a workforce for whom the state programme is often the first retirement account anyone has ever offered them. Restaurants · En español.
Construction and specialty trades
Framing, concrete, roofing, electrical and finish trades working across south county out of yards and trucks based here. Cash flow is seasonal and lumpy; the plan that fits is one that can take a large contribution in a good year and nothing in a bad one. Specialty trades · En español.
Public pensions and rollovers
Capistrano Unified is the public-pension employer that matters most here, with its credentialed staff in CalSTRS and its classified staff in CalPERS; city hall is CalPERS and the county payroll is OCERS. But the more common situation in San Juan Capistrano is the opposite one: no pension, no employer plan and no payroll deduction, because the work is self-employed. If that is you, the account has to be opened deliberately or it never exists. CalSTRS · Transferencia de 401(k) · Nuestros servicios en español.
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 San Juan Capistrano 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.
San Juan Capistrano questions
I am the first in my family with a retirement account, and I also help my parents every month. How do I do both?
By making it explicit instead of leaving it to whatever is left over, which is usually nothing. Put the support to your parents in the plan as a real, named line, the same way a mortgage goes in — then decide the savings number against what remains, and automate it so it happens before the month can spend it. It will be smaller than the internet says it should be. That is fine; a smaller amount that actually goes in every month beats a larger one that never starts. The other half of the conversation is the harder one: whether your parents' own situation has a plan behind it, because the cost of it not having one lands on you. How we approach it · En español.
The property has been in our family for three generations. What happens when it passes to us?
Two separate systems decide, and families routinely assume the friendlier answer for both. On the assessment side, Proposition 19 has since 2021 sharply narrowed what a child can inherit at the parents' existing base year value — the general rule now requires the child to occupy the property as a principal residence, and even then the exclusion is capped. Income tax basis is a different question, and an inherited asset generally gets stepped up. Where multiple siblings are involved and only one wants to live there, the arithmetic and the family conversation both need doing, ideally years before anyone is grieving. We map it; an estate attorney drafts it. Proposition 19 · Propuesta 19 en español.
I train horses and everything I earn is on a 1099. What retirement plan can I even use?
More than you would think, and the good options are for exactly this kind of income. A SEP-IRA lets you contribute a percentage of net self-employment earnings, which means a strong year can be large and a thin year can be zero — no commitment, no filing burden. If you have no employees other than a spouse, a solo 401(k) usually allows a bigger contribution at the same income and adds a Roth option. Either can be opened without a payroll company. The part that actually needs discipline is setting money aside for quarterly estimates first, because a retirement contribution made with money that belonged to the tax bill is not a contribution. Solo 401(k).
Do you actually meet clients from San Juan Capistrano, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 45.5 miles from San Juan Capistrano — 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 San Juan Capistrano 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.