Transferring to Cavendish Online S&S ISA questions

lonewolf123

Hello everyone my S&S ISA is currently with cofunds via moneysupermarket.

I really am stupid for not doing some more research into who to use for my S&S ISA. I'm not being charged any initial investment commission but I am getting charged commission for other means which I can save by transferring to Cavendish Online which gives back 100% commission.

Therefore I am planning to switch to them but I have three questions that I hope someone can answer.

1. First and foremost is Cavendish online one of the better choices to open an S&S Isa with? I plan to invest about £10,000 a year into 7-8 different funds and then holding it for 5-10 years

2. I already invested some money this financial year into the cofunds S&S ISA. I read somewhere that I can no longer invest into another S&S ISA account is this true? Does this mean I'm not allow to transfer my cofunds portfolio over to Cavendish this financial year?

3. After transferring over to Cavendish, is it possible to top up investments irregularly? I realise they have the lump sum approach where you place a lump of money in straight away and then they have the regular saving approach where you need to maybe put in £100 a month. I don't really want to do either of them. I want to put in money when I like such as £100 this month and £200 next month or even no money at all depending on my budget. Is this possible with Cavendish?

It would be great if anyone can help please.

psychic_teabag

1. It's certainly one of the cheaper ones for DIY. But "better" depends on what aspect you're judging - the web interface is a bit hostile compared with, say, H&L.

2. You can invest in one per year. But when you transfer it, it's still the same one. I think a better description of the rule is that all subscriptions within one financial year must stay together.

EDIT: sorry, all subscriptions within the current year must stay together. Older subscriptions can be split.

3. I believe so. But with irregular contributions, the minimum invested may be higher. Eg you might be allowed 50 per month per fund by regular contribution, but maybe 250 for a one-off addition to a fund you already have, or 1000 to start a new fund. The actual numbers probably change fund to fund. But I'm not 100% sure on this bit.

jimjames

Ive moved to Cavendish. Great service although their website (Cofunds) isnt as nice or easy to transact as HL for example.

When transferring you have to transfer the whole of the current year subscriptions not just part of it. WHen I had that situation I just waited until April and then I could transfer the individual funds I wanted to move as previous year subscriptions can be moved piecemeal.

Certainly with COfunds there appears to be no lower limit on the ad hoc top ups. I've done various amounts and so far never hit a limit. They may well introduce one in future as it is clearly uneconomic for them to send out paperwork confirming a transaction when the post costs & processing are probably £1 per letter.

westy22

You should be able to just re-register the S&S ISA with Cavendish which would mean no selling and re-buying. They used to use Cofunds as well as Fidelity but now trade on the Fidelity Funsnetwork platform only.

Best to give Cavendish a ring (they are very helpful and there are only 4 of them so you get a human being on the end of the phone!) - ask them about the logistics of re-registration.

koru

lonewolf123 wrote: »

I am getting charged commission for other means which I can save by transferring to Cavendish Online which gives back 100% commission.

Not quite. It gives back 100% of what is termed trail commission, which is usually 0.5% per annum of the value of the fund. It does not rebate the platform commission, which is usually 0.25%. Nor does it currently sell the new commission-free versions of most funds, which, with a few exceptions such as Fidelity and Invesco, have annual management charges of 0.75%. In comparison, with Cavendish you will be paying 1.5% annual management charge for most funds and receiving a rebate of only 0.5%. You might find Alliance Trust Savings and Interactive Investor will be cheaper, although you do need to take into account that they both charge for buying and selling funds and they both charge a quarterly fee. The bigger your portfolio and the fewer the transactions you carry out, the more you would be better off with ATS or II.

donniej

koru wrote: »

The bigger your portfolio and the fewer the transactions you carry out, the more you would be better off with ATS or II.

That's definitely true in principle, however even at 100k you'll still be better off with Cavendish than with iii or ATS.

That changes somewhere around the 150k mark I think for active funds, and much higher for passives.