An independent advisor should be sought.  However, 1 thing to realise is that usually, you are better paying off debts before investing the money separately.  To that end, if you do not currently have a house, then you should aim to put £20k EXTRA down as a deposit when you do get the house.  If you work the sums out correctly, then, as an example, putting the extra deposit down will enable you to take out a mortgage over a shorter period of time that you would otherwise do.

As an example: buying a £150k house with 5% deposit over 25 years (repayment) at a rate of 6% would cost £918 approx!

If instead of a mortgage of £142,500, you went for 1 of £122,500, and you chose to pay approx £918 per month, you would save approx 80 payments ie you would pay the mortgage off nearly 7 years sooner.  You could then continue to make another 80 payments into some sort of savings scheme.  Payments into the scheme alone would net you £73,400 before you got any rate of return on that money!  (After 25 years.)

Points to consider are:

- you would have to be resolute enough not to use any 'saved' capital should you move house during the 18 year mortgage to ensure you still had a period of time to save your money.

- putting down a larger deposit will give you access to more mortgage schemes and could mean that you will end up with a lower mortgage rate than you would otherwise have.

- remember as well that the money you saved during the life of the mortgage is earned TAX FREE as it is a saving rather than an income.  You would be hard pressed to get an investment of 6% after tax anywhere else.

- AND you still have £5,000 that you can put in a nice investment account for a rainy day, or to leave for 20 years.

- above all, and without knowing your circumstances, at 23 you have probably not fully settled down to know what money you will need.  Even though I am suggesting it via a mortgage saving scheme, tying all of your money down for many years is probable not  good idea as you don't know when you will need it.  Hence the £5k reserve.

If you already have a house, sorry for wasting your time!  You could, however, still use the money in this way should you decide to move house; or you may be able to pay off some of your mortgage or even remortgage to achieve the same result.

Doug, not sure you'll get too many repsonses to this. Most people will be far too jealous to provide a 23yr old with £25k burning a hole in his pocket with advice!

Seriously though, with that sort of money you HAVE to speak with an independent financial advisor. Just look in the Yellow Pages but make sure you phone 3 or 4, meet with them all and see which one seems the best to you before commissioning them to dispense advice.

It is always worth asking for professional advice when so much is at stake, although looking 20 years into the future might be difficult. If I were you I'd also contact more specialist sites like www.moneyweek.com www.investmentweek.co.uk and www.thisismoney.co.uk and see what they suggest. With that kind of capital, you are going to be very interesting to a lot of investment companies!

Good luck.