Setting off- can money be taken from ISAs?

Sportbilly_2

I'm thinking of opening an ISA with A&L. I already have a current account with them, with a large (free) overdraft. I know money could be taken from a normal savings account to 'set-off' the overdraft at the bank's discretion, but does the same apply to an ISA?

exel1966

An ISA is a 'normal savings account'. The only difference being that it has the tax free status.

Surely you'd only need to worry about offsetting if you were particulalrly bad at managing your accounts as that is usually the only time it's applied.

vaporate

OP,

May be a good idea to move the lolly (money) into a different bank, away from any possible debts.

Sportbilly_2

Thanks for that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the conduct of my account. I set it up initially to pay off a credit card as the overdraft was free for a year. It's funded adequately each month, and the balance is slowly coming down. What I didn't want to do was transfer my current RBS ISA to A&L and then have them turn around and want the overdraft repaying. Given what you've said above, that's probably unlikely, but I think I'll look for another ISA provider or stick with RBS if there's nothing better out there.

Cheers.

iereboy

If you have an ISA and savings, its highly unlikely that you will have to be worried about off setting at this stage.

Off setting is used at a much later stage when you start missing payments and start going towards the debt management side of the bank.