01
Comprehensive Financial Plan
A full diagnostic — cash flow, insurance, retirement projection, tax review, and estate snapshot — delivered as a written plan with two review meetings.
$3,800fixed · one-time
Vol. XXII · No. 04
The InterVest Quarterly
Chevy Chase, MD · Autumn Edition
Fiduciary
Fee-Only · Independent
Since 2003
The long
arc of capital.
InterVest, Ltd. is an independent, fee-only financial planning firm serving the households and professionals of Chevy Chase and the greater Washington corridor. We build durable plans — retirement, tax, estate, and investment — designed to hold their shape across decades, not quarters.
Model Portfolio · IV-40
$1,000,000
+ $24,180 · YTD +7.42%
Rebal · Q3
σ 9.4
Assets under advisement
$410M USD
Households served
312 families
Average tenure
11 years
01 — The Practice
A small firm, on purpose.
We are eight people in a single office two blocks from the Friendship Heights metro. That size is a deliberate choice. It lets every plan be written by a principal, every review be held across a real table, and every phone call be answered by someone who already knows your name.
InterVest was founded in 2003 as a fee-only fiduciary — meaning we are paid only by our clients, never by the products we recommend. We do not accept commissions, referral fees, or soft-dollar arrangements of any kind. The only alignment we will accept is the one you would expect: yours.
Our clients are federal retirees, physicians, law partners, small-business owners, and the families who have grown up around them. Most arrive mid-career, somewhere between the first serious asset and the first serious question about what it is for.
Margaret Ellery, CFP®
Managing Principal
02 — Services & Indicative Fees
Six lines of work,
Six lines of work,
priced plainly.
Every engagement begins with a fixed-scope letter. The figures below are the starting points we quote most often; final fees are confirmed in writing before any work begins. No hourly surprises, no asset-based creep on cash holdings.
02
Ongoing Wealth Management
Discretionary portfolio management, quarterly rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, and four planning touchpoints per year, billed on assets under management.
0.85%per annum · first $2M
03
Pre-Retirement Strategy
A two-meeting engagement for clients within five years of retirement: Social Security timing, pension elections, healthcare bridge, and withdrawal sequencing.
$2,400fixed · project
04
Tax-Aware Investing
Asset location, municipal bond allocation, and coordinated harvest review — designed for households in the 32% bracket and above in the D.C. metro.
$1,500per annum · add-on
05
Estate & Beneficiary Review
Coordination with your attorney to audit titling, beneficiary designations, trust funding, and gifting strategy against current federal and Maryland law.
$1,800fixed · project
06
Business Owner Planning
Cash-balance plan design, succession modeling, and exit liquidity planning for owner-operated businesses with revenue between $2M and $25M.
$4,500fixed · project
03 — Method
How we actually work.
i.
Plans before products.
We write the plan first. The investments, the insurance, the documents — they follow. We never lead with a product, and we never earn a commission on one.
ii.
One principal per plan.
The CFP® professional who writes your plan is the same person who sits across from you at every review. No handoffs to a junior desk, no rotating relationship manager.
iii.
Custodied, not held.
Your assets are custodied at Schwab or Fidelity — never at InterVest. We hold trading authority, not possession. You can see your money, move it, or leave us any day you choose.
A financial plan is not a document. It is a sequence of decisions you have not yet had to make — written down now, so that later, you do not have to think.— From the InterVest planning manual, 2019 revision
0/100
Commissions accepted · since founding
04 — Selected Work
A look inside the practice.
Anonymized frames from client engagements, planning sessions, and the office on Wisconsin Avenue.
05 — Begin
A first conversation,
A first conversation,
no cost.
We offer a 30-minute introductory call at no charge. It is not a sales meeting — it is a working conversation to understand your situation, answer your questions, and decide together whether InterVest is the right fit. There is no obligation to continue, and we will tell you plainly if we are not.