Change paper shares to electronic shares

xaghra70

My spouse has 500 HBOS paper shares. She has been informed that it is better to change them to Electronic ones.
How is this done? Can it be done free. What is the cheapest way to sell them once the change has been made.
Any help would be appreciated.

MallyGirl

you need to decide where you are going to hold your electronic shares then fill in the paperwork and send off with the certificates. Once shares are held electronically you are in a position to sell online.

I used x-o as a basic service and it only cost £5.95 to sell them once they had reached the price I was looking for.

2010

xaghra70 wrote: »

My spouse has 500 HBOS paper shares. She has been informed that it is better to change them to Electronic ones.
How is this done? Can it be done free. What is the cheapest way to sell them once the change has been made.
Any help would be appreciated.

You need to register and open an account with a broker such as Halifax share dealing which is free.
Once the account is open you`ll need a crest transfer form and a nominee account transfer form (you can print them off the Halifax site).
Fill the forms in and send them together with the share cert to Halifax share dealing and they will put them in their electronic nominee account free.
You can then sell them whenever you wish for £11-95.

That`s it in a nutshell, there are cheaper brokers but in the end you get what you pay for and if you are already a Halifax customer it`s easier.

doughnutmachine

xaghra70 wrote: »

My spouse has 500 HBOS paper shares. She has been informed that it is better to change them to Electronic ones.
How is this done? Can it be done free. What is the cheapest way to sell them once the change has been made.
Any help would be appreciated.

HBOS was taken over by Lloyds years ago. You sure it's not just an old certificate? Did your wife receive Lloyds shares?

grey_gym_sock

electronic is not necessarily better.

electronic is better if you might lose the certificate, since it costs money to replace it.

with electronic, you have to pick which provider's nominee account to use. you can later transfer between different nominee accounts, or between a nominee account and a certificate, or vice versa. there is rarely any charge to transfer from certificate to nominee account. there is almost always a charge to transfer out of a nominee account (whether into a certificate or into a different nominee account).

dealing is cheaper in nominee accounts. however, you could transfer from a certificate to a nominee (for free) just before selling.

there is sometimes a charge for merely having a nominee account open, even when you aren't buying or selling. this depends on the account provider.

with a certificate, you get communications direct from the company, and can attend shareholder meetings, and there may be perks for shareholders. with a nominee account, these things may or may not be passed on, and there may be charges if you want them passed on.

with a certificate, your name and address is on the company's share register, which various ppl will access, including some scammers, who may contact you as a result.