ISA newbie - Coventry Notice ISA help

Cooliogti

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding something I have noticed in the terms for the Coventry 60 day notice ISA, it says that deposits will only be accepted up to 5th April...

Now what I want to know is, is this normal? I know that the financial year runs from 6th April, to 5th April, I know I can only invest £5k in each tax year, but what I want to check is whether the statement from Coventry is normal or not.

The reason I want to know is that I had planned on opening up this ISA to save for our wedding (and further on savings), but I'm now in a dilemma over what to do. Should I put as much as I can in this one and then open up another one for anything extra after 6th april (and transfer if a better rate comes up of course), or just wait until after the 6th April...

Any advice would be much appreciated:)

amcg100

You can only have one ISA - to get one you need to give your NI number so the government knows how much money you have - you should put as much as you can in before april deadline - after April you can invest another £5K.

innovate

amcg100 wrote: »

You can only have one ISA - to get one you need to give your NI number so the government knows how much money you have - you should put as much as you can in before april deadline - after April you can invest another £5K.

You certainly can have more than one cash ISA.

• you can open one now and put up to £5,640 into it before April 6 2013.
• you can open a new ISA, with the same or any other provider, on or after April 6 2013, and deposit up to £5,670 into it
  

In theory, you could have opened a new cash ISA every year since 1999 and have over a dozen cash ISAs now. In practice, you would probably have combined your ISAs into a small number, or just one ISA.

There is nothing that forces you to pay your next year's ISA deposits into the ISA you opened this year. In fact, as the OP has found, some providers will not take any more deposits for certain products after a certain date.

In answer to OP's Q: yes, you can put as much up to £5,640 into a cash ISA now, and then open up another one for anything extra after 5th April (and transfer if a better rate comes up of course)

Of course, both of you could have their own ISA, so you could put 2 x £5,640 into ISAs this tax year.

thenudeone

Financial institutions market new savings accounts with decent rates when they think they'll need new funds to lend out. With a building society, that will usually be for residential mortgages.

Once they have received the funding they require, the account will be withdrawn and often closed to new deposits. In this case Coventry wants to limit the funds each person can put in to a maximum of £5640. If they left it until April 6th, each account holder could put another £5k in, which might be more than they need for their planned lending.

thenudeone

amcg100 wrote: »

You can only have one ISA

Rubbish. I have about half a dozen.

Once the tax year has ended you are free to split and merge ISAs from that year at will - into 5,640 ISAs containing £1 each, if you want to and can find financial institutions willing to accept deposits of that size:)

You can only contribute new money to one ISA during the tax year, and if you transfer it during the tax year, it must be transferred in full, and you can continue contributing to the new transferred ISA up to the annual limit.

Cooliogti

Ok, I think I might need to put it differently

Scenario A:
I can open up one ISA in one tax year, and then continue to pay into that same ISA in the following tax year also, and only open up a second one if I WANTED to.

Scenario B:
I can open up one ISA in one tax year, then the following Tax year I must open a second ISA, if I want to continue to pay into an ISA...

now which one is the "norm" (or the Rules) scenario A or scenario B? Coventry are scenario B, is everyone else? If it's the rule then everyone will be like this, but if it's just Coventry then I would be able to open an ISA with say NS&i for example this tax year and still continue to pay into that same ISA after April 6th. Is this what some places call "subscribing" to your ISA?

I hope this makes my question a bit clearer... Either way it's fine, I just want to know which one it is lol

innovate

There is no "norm", you can have either scenario (and more), as already explained.

The key things to remember are

1. you can only deposit new money into one ISA per tax year (although you are free to transfer this ISA during the tax year)
2. you can only deposit up to your annual allowance
3. interest rates on ISAs do change, usually downwards. Therefore transferring (*)funds to a new provider is something people regularly do
4. some ISAs are instant access, some are fixed-term, some allow transfers in, others don't - these factors will influence whether you transfer or not

(*) using the formal transfer procedure

thenudeone

Cooliogti wrote: »

Scenario A:
I can open up one ISA in one tax year, and then continue to pay into that same ISA in the following tax year also, and only open up a second one if I WANTED to.

You can't do both. If you continue to pay into an existing ISA once the new tax year starts, you can't put any new money into a second ISA.

carla_004

Cooliogti wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding something I have noticed in the terms for the Coventry 60 day notice ISA, it says that deposits will only be accepted up to 5th April...

Now what I want to know is, is this normal? I know that the financial year runs from 6th April, to 5th April, I know I can only invest £5k in each tax year, but what I want to check is whether the statement from Coventry is normal or not.

The reason I want to know is that I had planned on opening up this ISA to save for our wedding (and further on savings), but I'm now in a dilemma over what to do. Should I put as much as I can in this one and then open up another one for anything extra after 6th april (and transfer if a better rate comes up of course), or just wait until after the 6th April...

Any advice would be much appreciated:)

Are you saying that Coventry will only accept ONE payment into the ISA for the year ... or that the FIRST payment must be before 6th April?

:beer:

innovate

carla_004 wrote: »

Are you saying that Coventry will only accept ONE payment into the ISA for the year ... or that the FIRST payment must be before 6th April?

:beer:

You can put up to £5,640 into it before 6th April 2013, in as many payments as you like.

You cannot put anything else into it afterwards.

spike87

innovate wrote: »

You can put up to £5,640 into it before 6th April 2013, in as many payments as you like.

You cannot put anything else into it afterwards.

I thought the same thing after opening an account with them last month, however the last post in this thread says that Coventry BS have said people will be allowed to add their allowance in the 2013/14 tax year:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4374705