Halifax fixed rate ISA

jackieg1972

I set up a Halifax 3 year fixed rate ISA at 3% last week. I have just had a call to say that money which I have already put in will get 3 % but anything I put in in the future will only get 2.25%. How can this be a fixed rate for 3 years if the rate has already dropped ?

Lokolo

You seem to be confused.

Fixed rate ISAs with Halifax only allow one deposit. You opened up a 3% 3 year Fixed Rate ISA and made a deposit.

Should you wish to open another 3 year fixed ISA, you would only get 2.25%.

You cannot open a fixed rate ISA and then keep depositing money in to it.

jackieg1972

I didn't know that. I assumed that I could put money in up to the annual ISA limit each year and it would earn 3 %. I was also intending to transfer money in from another ISA this week, but I now won't bother. If I had managed to transfer in my money before they phoned me with the rate change would that have got 3% or would I have had to add this years allowance to my other ISA and then transfer it all together.

Lokolo

I am not sure whether you can still transfer existing ISAs into it. In the past, I have done it all at the same time.

When you open the account you can do multiple things, so I have deposit new money, and transferred existing. But I did this all in branch.

xylophone

You opened your 2013-14 ISA last week? It is a 3 year fixed rate product which does not allow additional deposits. You did not deposit your full allowance of £5760.

Will Halifax permit you to pay the balance for this year into another ISA product?

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/isa/faqs.htm#8

Q. How many ISAs can I have?
A. There are limits on the number of ISA accounts you can subscribe to each tax year. You can only put money into one cash ISA

The above is from HMRC but Nationwide, for example, does permit the splitting of the annual allowance across a range of ISA products. http://www.nationwide.co.uk/savings/cash_isa/cash-isa.htm Not all providers will allow this.

pqrdef

jackieg1972 wrote: »

I didn't know that.

The banks are confusing the hell out of people with this. They make you sign a form saying you won't go over your annual allowance, when they know perfectly well you won't get another penny in.

Their product literature is like the offside rule - perfectly understandable, but only to people who already understand it.

Wait for the ISA mis-selling scandal.