Have I just lost 4 years' worth of ISA allowance?

woolyhat

My ISA savings, which I'd built up over a number of years, were previously in a NatWest account and I decided to transfer the whole lot to a Halifax "ISA Saver" account this year.

I opened the Halifax account a few weeks ago with the minimum balance of £1 and then did an online banking transfer direct from my NatWest ISA to the Halifax ISA.

Today I got a letter from the Halifax saying they've treated the money as a new investment (even though I was transferring from another ISA account) and included a banker's draft for everything above the 2011/12 investment limit.

I phoned Halifax but the person I spoke to said I was supposed to fill in a special form to do the transfer, and it's highly unlikely I'll be able to get the money back into an ISA now.

I'm really annoyed that Halifax's website mentions nothing about this special form in the sign-up process, and NatWest don't display any kind of warning or explanation about the transfer rules on their online banking pages where you do bank transfers.

Is there anything I can do, or do I just have to accept that I've lost several years' worth of ISA allowance and start again from scratch?

Hugbubble

Halifax quite clearly mention about transferring-

http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/accounts/cash-isas/transfer-your-isa/

I think you've lost the allowance. Sorry.

blueberrypie

woolyhat wrote: »

I opened the Halifax account a few weeks ago with the minimum balance of £1 and then did an online banking transfer direct from my NatWest ISA to the Halifax ISA.

This is the problem - you withdrew the funds from your Natwest ISA. As soon as you did this, they were no longer inside an ISA wrapper.

When you transferred them to Halifax, they were - quite correctly - treated as new funds, and put towards this year's ISA allowance.

This is something that applies to *all* ISA transfers - they must be done by ISA managers, using the correct procedure. I'm afraid I think you have indeed just lost the ISA-wrapper protection for these funds.

Stompa

I guess as a last resort you could try calling the HMRC ISA Helpline:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/spss/contactsav.htm

I'm pretty sure it'll be bad news though I'm afraid.

talana

Stompa wrote: »

I guess as a last resort you could try calling the HMRC ISA Helpline:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/spss/contactsav.htm
I'm pretty sure it'll be bad news though I'm afraid.

I was going to suggest similar to Stompa.
Appealing to HMRC, explaining your error, is the last hope.

bigfreddiel

Hugbubble wrote: »

Halifax quite clearly mention about transferring-

http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/accounts/cash-isas/transfer-your-isa/

I think you've lost the allowance. Sorry.

that seemed very clear to me for what its worth

fj

Twister84

Speak to Halifax about it and mention that it was a mistake.

When Natwest customers have done this, I've spoken to our Central Tax Unit and they fix everything. I'm sure Halifax would have a similar department.

cing0

The Halifax ISA Direct reward does have a 14-day cooling off period according to p14 of http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/forms/generic_sav_app/forms/pdfs/1_336202-9.pdf
But as you didn't manager transfer, cancelling will just result in Halifax giving you the £5340 to go with the other bankers draft.
What other posters have said is wrong, you will get nowhere by 'speaking' to them.

opinions4u

woolyhat wrote: »

I'm really annoyed that Halifax's website mentions nothing about this special form in the sign-up process

Go on. Admit you're wrong on this. Here's a link to the product page.

That page states:

If you have an ISA with another provider and want to take advantage of our ISA promise and interest rates, you can transfer your ISA to us now

If you click on the transfer your ISA bit it comes up with:

Transferring your ISA is easy - all you need to do is:

• Step 1 - Open a Halifax cash ISA, if you don't already have one
• Step 2 - Complete and return a transfer request form (pdf) to us at the address below or return it to your local branch:

The Formby Team
PO Box 4329
MANCHESTER
M61 0BN

So what else are they meant to show you?

bigfreddiel

opinions4u wrote: »

Go on. Admit you're wrong on this. Here's a link to the product page.

That page states:

If you click on the transfer your ISA bit it comes up with:

So what else are they meant to show you?

thats giving it with both barrels!

black_taxi_2

surprised nat west never contacted you before transfer---isa surely raises alarm bells