Skandia preventing me from transfering MultiIsa

deroney

I have an old MultiIsa (100% funds) with Skandia which I have not contributed to for a few years. I recently received a letter from Skandia outlining their new charges of £51.58 each year!!!! The value of my isa is less than £2000. The letter outlined my options, one of them saying that I could transfer my account to another platform or ISA provider.
I have since setup an ISA account with another provider. I completed the forms to transfer my ISA with my new provider, but SKANDIA replied to my new provider saying that it was not possible to transfer it.
I rang SKANDIA today and they confirmed that I could not transfer my ISA, that their systems did not allow it. My only option is to leave it with SKANDIA or cash it in. I do not want to cash it in because I loose the tax advantages i.e. I want to use my full ISA allowance this year.
Can SKANDIA do this ? Surely this is not allowed especially given the letter they originally sent me.
Any advice would be gratefully received.

THanks

oldfella

suggest you quote HMRC rules on transferring ISAs - see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ISA/transfer-isa.htm

they have no choice, they have to allow transfers

dunstonh

I recently received a letter from Skandia outlining their new charges of £51.58 each year!!!

Not an issue though. They have dropped the initial charges to zero and have no switching charges either. For larger investments (which is their target market) its well priced. For smaller ones its not (and thats where you currently sit).

Skandia do allow transfers. However, they may not allow re-registration (and are not required to). What method were you attempting to use (I suspect the latter).

jamesd

deroney, it's common to require you to sell the investments within the ISA, leaving the cash proceeds in the ISA, then transferring the cash to the new ISA provider. Since the proceeds of the sale remain within an ISA at all times this has no effect on your ISA allowance at all.

It's also not uncommon to allow transferring the holdings without selling them but for the sending or receiving manager or both to charge for the service.

deroney

dunstonh wrote: »

Not an issue though. They have dropped the initial charges to zero and have no switching charges either. For larger investments (which is their target market) its well priced. For smaller ones its not (and thats where you currently sit).

Skandia do allow transfers. However, they may not allow re-registration (and are not required to). What method were you attempting to use (I suspect the latter).

Thanks for your reply. I am not sure I know the difference between Transfer and re-registration. With my new ISA provider I completed an ISA transfer form. So I want the Skandia Fund to be tansferred to my new provider. Suggests to me that that may also mean re-registration ?

dunstonh

It does sound like you opted for re-registration and Skandia dont do that at the moment. They will do a transfer though.

James covers the basics in post #4.

Re-registration is where the investment is left in place but the ISA manager is changed.

Transfer is where the investment is sold to cash (still within the ISA). Skandia write a cheque to the new ISA manager and you tell the new ISA manager what investments you want to buy. That could be the same fund or others.

deroney

thanks again for you reply. i understand now. If I choose to transfer (i.e. via cash as you explained above) , does that mean the amount will come out my current year ISA investment allowance with my new ISA manager.

dunstonh

it doesnt use your current year ISA allowance.