- Fee-onlyno commissions
- No account minimumfor investment management
- English & Spanishnatively
- Accepting new clientsIn person in Norwalk, by video, or at your Westlake Village business
- Fiduciaryin writing, always
- DFPI-registeredCRD #311270
- In business sinceDecember 2020
- Free 15-minute callno obligation
Westlake Village skews older and more senior than the rest of this corridor: executives and professionals at or near the end of long careers, many of them with stock options, a deferred plan and a house held for decades. The questions are sequencing rather than accumulation — which account to draw first, when to take Social Security, and what a move down the road does to a property tax base built in another era.
Start with the honest part: we are 55.7 miles from Westlake Village
We do not have an office in Westlake Village, and we are not going to imply otherwise with a service-area pin. our principal office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 55.7 miles away. If a firm's Westlake Village 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 Westlake Village 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 Westlake Village
Start with a fact that trips up newcomers, lenders and half the mail that arrives here. The city of Westlake Village is entirely inside Los Angeles County. The master-planned community of the same name does not stop at the city limits: it continues west across the county line into Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County. A Westlake Village mailing address does not tell you which county you are in, which assessor values your house, which sheriff answers a call, or which school district your children attend — Las Virgenes Unified on the Los Angeles side, Conejo Valley Unified on the Ventura side. Two neighbours on the same lake can be in different counties, and it shows up on their property tax bills before it shows up anywhere else.
The working economy is not really in the city; it is around it. The Conejo Valley's biotechnology and medical device cluster is anchored by Amgen's campus in Thousand Oaks, a few minutes west, and the office buildings along Lindero Canyon Road, Russell Ranch Road and Townsgate Road carry insurance, finance, professional services and a good deal of corporate back office. That produces a particular kind of household: a long career at one or two large employers, a 401(k) that has been funded properly for thirty years, stock options or restricted stock accumulated in layers, and a mortgage that was paid off some time ago.
Which makes the work here decumulation, and decumulation is where good advice is hardest to find. The order in which accounts are drawn changes the lifetime tax bill materially. The years between retiring and the first required distribution are the cheapest years you will ever have to convert pre-tax money to Roth, and most people spend them doing nothing. Sequence risk — a bad market in the first few years of withdrawals — does damage that a good market later cannot undo. And a household downsizing within California can carry its assessed value with it under Proposition 19, across county lines, subject to conditions worth getting right in advance. Sequence risk · Roth conversion tool · Proposition 19.
The local employer base
The Conejo biotechnology and device cluster
Amgen's Thousand Oaks campus is the anchor, with device and diagnostics firms around it. These are private plans — a 401(k) with employer contributions, plus restricted stock or options that vest in layers and quietly become the largest single position a household owns. Equity compensation · Medical technology.
Offices on Lindero Canyon, Russell Ranch and Townsgate
Insurance, finance, professional services and corporate administration. Private 401(k) plans, some with a nonqualified deferred compensation arrangement for senior staff, and a large number of firms small enough that the mandate decision is still open. Business retirement plans.
Two school districts, one community
Las Virgenes Unified serves the Los Angeles County side; Conejo Valley Unified serves the Ventura County side. Both put certificated staff in CalSTRS and classified staff in CalPERS, so a teacher who crosses the county line to work keeps the same system — the pension follows the profession, not the county. CalSTRS.
Los Robles Regional Medical Center, Thousand Oaks
The nearest full-service hospital, and an HCA facility — which means its employees are in a private employer's retirement plan rather than a public pension, with no defined benefit floor underneath. Physicians in independent practice nearby need a plan of their own entirely. Medical practices.
Public pensions and rollovers
Very few Westlake Village households draw a California public pension. The exceptions are the two school districts and the handful of municipal and county employees who serve the area. The private-sector equivalent for most people here is a defined contribution balance that has to produce forty years of income by itself, which is a harder job than a pension has and is done with none of a pension's guarantees. Some residents also hold a frozen corporate defined benefit plan from an employer that closed it years ago, and if a lump sum is being offered against it, that is a decision with no undo button. Pension against lump sum.
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 Westlake Village 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.
Westlake Village questions
We want a smaller house but not a larger tax bill. Does the assessed value move with us?
Under Proposition 19 a homeowner who is 55 or older can transfer the assessed value of a principal residence to a replacement principal residence anywhere in California, including across a county line, and can do it more than once — with conditions on timing and on how the values compare, and with an upward adjustment if the new house costs more. It is not automatic; a claim has to be filed with the assessor of the county you move to. Confirm the current rules with that assessor and your CPA before you list the house, not after. What Proposition 19 changed.
I have incentive stock options and my accountant mentioned the alternative minimum tax.
Then your accountant is doing the job. Exercising an incentive stock option and holding the shares does not create ordinary income, but the spread at exercise is an adjustment that can trigger the alternative minimum tax in that year — so a paper gain becomes a real cash bill on shares you have not sold. How many to exercise, and in which tax year, is a calculation your CPA runs; our part is making sure the answer is not driven by the fact that the options are about to expire. Options and equity.
We both retire in about two years. What is the first thing to do?
Build the withdrawal order before you need it. That means knowing what each account is — pre-tax, Roth, taxable, and anything with a basis nobody has tracked — deciding which gets spent first, setting a cash reserve that covers the first two or three years so a bad market does not force a sale, and looking hard at the window between your last paycheque and your first required distribution, because that is the cheapest tax bracket you will ever occupy again. How much is enough · When to claim Social Security.
Do you actually meet clients from Westlake Village, or is this page just for search?
We meet them. Our office is at 12838 Rosecrans Ave in Norwalk, about 55.7 miles from Westlake Village — 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 Westlake Village 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.