Trust
How We Verify Advisors
A directory is only as good as its standards. Every advisor listed in the Arizona Fee Only directory has been independently verified as fee-only, fiduciary, and properly registered before their profile goes live. Here's how that verification works — and how you can independently verify any advisor yourself.
The four checks every listing passes
Before any advisor profile becomes visible in the directory, we verify four things:
1. Registration
We confirm that the advisor's firm is appropriately registered as a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) — at the state level with the Arizona Corporation Commission Securities Division if assets under management are below the federal threshold, or with the SEC for larger firms. We use the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) site to verify registration and review the advisor's Form ADV filings.
2. Fee-only compensation model
We read the advisor's Form ADV Part 2A (the disclosure brochure) to confirm that the firm is compensated only by clients. Specifically we look for:
- No commissions on insurance, mutual fund, or annuity sales
- No 12b-1 fees, revenue sharing, or other product-tied compensation
- No referral fees from custodians, fund companies, or other advisors
Advisors also attest in writing during signup that they meet these criteria. Misstatement of fee-only status is grounds for immediate removal from the directory.
3. Fiduciary standard
We confirm the advisor holds themselves to a fiduciary standard with respect to advisory clients — a legal obligation to act in the client's best interest. This is the default legal standard for RIAs under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
Where an advisor is dually registered (also affiliated with a broker-dealer), we examine whether the brokerage side is active and whether commissioned business is disclosed. Dual registration is generally incompatible with our fee-only requirement; we do not list dually-registered advisors who actively transact through a broker-dealer.
4. Disciplinary history
We review FINRA's BrokerCheck and the IAPD for any reportable disclosures (regulatory actions, customer complaints, civil judgments, criminal matters). We don't automatically exclude advisors with disclosures, but we review them carefully and reserve the right to deny or remove a listing where the disclosure conflicts with the directory's standards or the advisor's public representations.
How you can verify any advisor yourself
You should not rely solely on a directory — including ours — when choosing a financial advisor. Two free, official sources to check:
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD). Search the firm or individual to see registration status, Form ADV filings, and any reportable disclosures.
- FINRA BrokerCheck. Search the individual's name. If they hold or have ever held a securities license, BrokerCheck shows their full employment, registration, and disclosure history.
Both sources are free, official, and authoritative. They take about five minutes to use and tell you a great deal about how an advisor is structured and whether anything in their history would give you pause.
Ongoing review
Verification is not a one-time event. We re-check listed advisors on a rolling basis — particularly when an advisor changes firms, updates their Form ADV, or changes their fee schedule — and we ask advisors to notify us promptly of any change to the facts they attested to during signup. If a listing falls out of compliance with our standards, we deactivate it and refund any prepaid subscription period at our discretion.
What we don't verify
To be clear about the limits of our verification:
- Quality of advice. We don't assess advisors' clinical skill, the appropriateness of their recommendations, or their fit for any particular client. That evaluation is yours to make.
- Pricing reasonableness. Fee-only doesn't mean low-cost. A 1.25% AUM fee from a fee-only advisor is more expensive than a $5,000 flat fee from another fee-only advisor; both can be fee-only. Compare carefully.
- Customer satisfaction. We don't currently run a review or rating system. Talk to current clients if the advisor can connect you, and look at independent third-party review platforms.
Founder disclosure
Arizona Fee Only is founded by Raman Singh, CFP®, EA, who is also a practicing fee-only fiduciary advisor at Singh PWM LLC. Raman's listing in the directory has been verified using the same checks described above. The verification process does not give Raman's firm preferential treatment — placement, features, and lead routing follow the same rules as any other advisor at the same tier. See our about page for full disclosure.
Find your advisor
Connect with a fee-only fiduciary in Arizona
Every advisor in our directory is fee-only and held to a fiduciary standard. Free for consumers — no referral fees, no shared leads.