Safe place for an inheritance for up to a year

exeter_lass

Hi. This is my first post here so please excuse me diving straight in. I'm in receipt of an inheritance, most of which I want to stash for up to year with a view to using a large chunk as a house deposit and then invest the rest. Total amount is £160k. I've done a bit of reading on what's out there and that I should only have up to £85k in any one place to make sure it's protected. I've been thinking about putting half in an ING account and half somewhere else?!!? I'd like to earn enough interest on it to hopefully cover my legal and moving fees when I do eventually buy.

In many ways it's a nice problem to have but I've never had to deal with this amount of money before and it's making me nervous. Not to mention the emotional fallout attached to it.

Also, if anyone has any advice on how to find a decent IFA and what sort of longer term investments I should be looking at? I'm aiming to have around £60k to put into these.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

atush

For a start I would put your full ISA allowance in cash in the higest interest one you can find. That way at least some of your interest will be tax free. If you have a partner or afult children you could open one for them if they don't have one.

I would of course tell you to pay off any current debt ( I am sure you ahve thought of this) and consider joining or getting a pension if you ahven't got one (or topping up one you have with a lump sum). Not other time in your life will you hve so much available cash to consider these with such ease.

If you can leave it for a full year, the NSI inflation+.5% acct while a 5 year one allows with drawals after one year. And that would be a good home for non bank money as it is guaranteed by the govt.

Ark_Welder

Hmmm. Seeing rather a lot being bandied around about the £85K FSCS limit. This is not per-bank, but per-authorisation.

Take Lloyds Banking Group as an example.

Lloyds TSB has a separate authorisation to Lloyds TSB Private Banking, so £85K could be put into both of these and all would be covered. However. Halifax (also owned by LBG), as part of the former HBOS, has a different authorisation so an additional £85k in here would be covered. However, Saga and AA Saving both use the same authorisation as Halifax, so accounts held by these three would be lumped together and anything above the limit would not be covered.

See the FSA website (remember the www) fsa.gov.uk/pages/consumerinformation/uk_groups/index.shtml

bigfreddiel

Ark_Welder wrote: »

Hmmm. Seeing rather a lot being bandied around about the £85K FSCS limit. This is not per-bank, but per-authorisation.

this is actually quite well known

Ark_Welder

bigfreddiel wrote: »

this is actually quite well known

It doesn't hurt to make it more well known - especially with regards to the names of the actual organisations

barak

Ark_Welder wrote: »

It doesn't hurt to make it more well known - especially with regards to the names of the actual organisations

The link you give http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/consumerinformation/uk_groups/index.shtml is useful, but is not complete.
"This is not a complete list of deposit takers covered by the FSCS."

MSE's own pages -
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings#whatcounts
and
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings/full-list/
are also useful and have wider coverage.