Frequently Asked Questions

It’s how every Third Act relationship starts: roughly 10 to 20 hours of real planning work on your actual numbers, at no cost and no obligation. Over three meetings, we learn what matters to you, review your accounts, documents, and tax return, and walk you through what we found. You keep those findings whether or not you decide to work with us.

Our Approach

Three things: where you really stand, what’s quietly being missed, whether that’s a tax window closing, an investment option you were never shown, or a gap between your advisors, and what we would do about it. If we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you honestly and point you in the right direction.

Two things. Cooperation: there are documents we need to give you an accurate second opinion, and we ask for them in a timely manner. And an open mind: most people who go through this process are reasonably happy with what they have today. We ask that if we can show you real value beyond what you’re receiving now, you’d consider working with us.

Yes. We work with families who have $1 million or more in investable assets. We’d like to serve everyone, but each advisor serves no more than 100 families, and that depth requires a minimum.

Because most of the people who come to us do. The question usually isn’t whether your advisor is capable. It’s whether anyone is looking at your whole picture: your taxes, your estate documents, your coverage, and your investments together. A Second Opinion answers that, and the findings are yours to keep either way.

Your CPA, attorney, and insurance agent stay right where they are; we coordinate with them. The seat that changes is the advisor’s: if we work together, we manage your investments and take the place in the middle of your plan.

Family Wealth Coordination

Yes. Most of our families are in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, and we also work with clients across Texas and with families elsewhere in the country, in person and virtually.

Families preparing for retirement or already living it, most of them between 55 and 75, who want one person coordinating their full financial picture. Within that group we do specialized work for executives with equity compensation and business owners preparing for an eventual sale.

Who We Serve

Third Act operates on a fee-based model. Before you decide anything, you’ll have our advisor fee, the internal expense ratios of any investments, and any platform fees in writing, so you’re making the decision with the full cost in front of you.

Yes, in our fee-based advisory relationships. As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Nick Lalonde is also held to a fiduciary standard under the CFP Board’s Code of Ethics.

Most of our relationships are fee-based, which is how we prefer to work. Through our broker-dealer relationship with LPL Financial, we can also handle commission-based business where it fits your situation, such as certain annuities, insurance policies, or existing holdings you already own. Any commission is disclosed in writing before you make a decision.

One lead advisor who knows your whole picture and answers for all of it. Behind that relationship sits a dedicated planning support team and, for complex situations, specialist teams through LPL Financial, a Fortune 500 company. You’re never handed to a rotating service desk.

We meet on a set schedule to review progress and adjust the plan as your life and the tax law change. Between those meetings, we reach out whenever something in your plan needs attention, before you would have thought to ask.

It’s a fair question, and one we’ve planned for. Your accounts are held at LPL Financial, not at Third Act, and we maintain a written continuity plan so your relationship and your plan don’t depend on one person’s calendar.

Third Act Wealth Management and LPL Financial are separate entities. LPL is our custodian, which means it’s where your money is held, where you have online access, and where your statements come from. It also provides the research, due diligence, and compliance support behind our work. Nick Lalonde is affiliated with LPL Financial, a Fortune 500 company; Member FINRA/SIPC.

Three things. Each advisor serves no more than 100 families, so there’s room to go a mile deep with yours. Every plan is made to measure, built under the direction of a CFP® professional with the full range of tools, not fitted to a model. And we give before we receive: the relationship starts with 10 to 20 hours of real planning work, free. Our process was built on CEG Consulting’s research into 10,000 households, an approach fewer than 7 in 100 wealth managers commit to.

Most advisory relationships are built around the investment accounts. We work across eight areas: investment management, tax planning, cash flow, estate planning, wealth protection, charitable giving, retirement planning, and coordinating the other professionals around you. Each one gets reviewed against the others, because that’s where the gaps usually hide.

Cost efficiency, tax efficiency, and a risk-reward balance built around your actual goals, not a house model applied to every account. We organize the tools available to us as four layers, from core market exposure through separately managed accounts, outcome-oriented strategies, and alternatives, and use the layer your plan calls for. We offer no proprietary products; through LPL Financial we have access to thousands of investment options.‍

Investment Management

After nearly a decade at some of the largest firms in the country, Nick Lalonde built Third Act on a simple idea: a wealth management firm should skate to where the puck is going, not to where it sits today. That means adapting how we plan and invest as technology reshapes the industry, instead of putting every client through the same one-size-fits-all approach.

About Third Act