£165k to invest for 4-5 months

CiderBoy

Hi all,

I'm a bit out of my depth here as I'm more used to dealing with loans than savings. Hopefully somebody out there can give me some advice.

My parents complete on their house sale next week and will have approx. £165k available for 4-5 months until their new build is complete.

They were planning on just leaving it in their bank account but I'd like to think that I could get them a bit of interest - hopefully enough to send them away to a nice hotel for a few days.

Obviously I can't risk the money being too tied up - we've been given an indication of end-Oct/ early-Nov for completion on the new house and have to be in a position to access the money with potentially only a couple of weeks notice.

I've got myself completely lost trying to find some accounts to set up for them. I'm aware that I need to make sure that no more than £85k is in any one account but, after that I just don't know really what I'm looking for.

Can any of you point me in the right direction, possibly suggest some accounts and give me some idea of how much interest they can expect over 4-5 months (I'm hoping for around £500).

Thanks in advance.

psychic_teabag

In a joint account the protection would be 2*85k = £170k

Should be easy to get 3% interest on an instant-access savings account - check the best-buy tables or Martin's guide at
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest

At 3% for 4 months, £165k should return around £1650 before tax (3% for 4 months is about the same as 1% for 1 year, ignoring compounding)