Hargreaves Lansdown "playing hardball"

vm2pensioner

All this uncertainty about actual costs seems to be another example of an unintended consequence of government seeking to make prices more "transparent", as in the domestic energy supply market, but in fact causing yet more confusion and, in many cases, greater expense!

Rollinghome

hyposmurf wrote: »

Here's another change to their charging:

Account closure fee £25 +VAT

It was free before, but other platforms charge a lot more.

HL were very much the top end for moving funds before and now still more expensive. They are clearly intent on making it very expensive to escape.

On top of the account closure fee they will still make a charge of £30 per fund you transfer out and will charge even if you sell and transfer in cash. You won't even escape their charges by dying as they're introducing a new charge for probate valuations of £36 per stock, with a minimum charge of £120 and max of £600.

For comparison Fidelity/CavendishOnLine charge nothing to transfer funds elsewhere and nothing to close accounts. The UK CEO for Fidelity is on record expressing his opposition to exit fees.

As I read it they're even going to charge for closing non-ISA accounts. So you'd have to pay their top end £11.95 dealing charge to sell shares and then pay another back-end account closure fee of £30, so could be £41.95 to sell a single share. (Anyone who still has a few Royal Mail shares with them please note.)

Most bizarrely, they intend to charge an additional fee for holding investment trusts - on top of the already high dealing charge and back-end charges. For comparison on share-dealing there are various brokers with dealing charges half of those of HL who make no charge for closing either an ISA or non-ISA account and will transfer shares to another nominee account or to a certificate for around £15.

And I see they're going to charge £24 per year for sending paper contract notes.

HL have obviously been listening to Thenardier in Les Mis:

"Charge 'em for the lice,
Extra for the mice,
Two percent for looking in the mirror twice.
Here a little slice,
There a little cut,
Three percent for sleeping with the window shut.
When it comes to fixing prices
There are lots of tricks he knows,
How it all increases,
All those bits and pieces -
Jesus! It's amazing how it grows."

hansi

I am very naive when it comes to shares and I only have a very small amount of shares purely for the perks I get when booking cruises. They are held by HL in a nominee account. In view of the fact that HL are now starting to charge, how do I go about having the share certificate in my possession to avoid paying the charges please?

vm2pensioner

jimjames wrote: »

An IT is a share so should be exactly the same.

Just a way of getting more fees!

jamesd

hyposmurf wrote: »

Here's another change to their charging:

Account closure fee £25 +VAT

It was free before, but other platforms charge a lot more.

No need to close the account, though, just leave it open forever to save the £25.

Not very friendly of them to have that charge start at around the same time as people will finally find out what happens to costs there, when the fund charges are announced. Of course if you do it as a result of it becoming more expensive for you, they are supposed not to make such charges and apparently the FOS has ruled in favour of people who complained about that sort of thing in the past.

peterg1965

The market is not impressed, HL shares down 5%.

It's a real and genuine shame as I like the HL platform and all of my portfolio together, but money is money. I wonder how many people will vote with their feet, or will the inertia and fear of change keep people invested when they could do better elsewhere.

jamesd

Gaaraz wrote: »

Is there anyway to easily work out which platform will be the best for us? iii looks good if we keep adding to the pot, otherwise Cavendish could be a good shout?

It's too soon to be doing that. Best to wait for a month or two to see how other places respond.

Rollinghome

jamesd wrote: »

No need to close the account, though, just leave it open forever to save the £25.

Not sure that would work:

"If you withdraw cash or transfer to a new manager with the result that your Hargreaves Lansdown account is worth less than £50 then your account will be closed, the closure fee collected and any balance returned to you or transferred to your new provider."

Unless you leave £50 with them for ever.

Financial_Saddler

foofi22 wrote: »

Not necessarily, just because your costs may have risen doesn't mean you would be better off elsewhere.

Not that I'm saying you wouldn't be better off elsewhere of course, that depends on your circumstances

Forgot to remove some platform fees - now looking at 1.02%-1.06% as my new TER.
With the same investment mix, Interactive Investor would be 0.71% and Trustnet would be 0.77%.
No brainer really . HL have been greedy by implementing a high fund charge, tiered at too high a portfolio value , attacking tracker fund investors , attacking investors with a mix of ITs, shares and ETFs, and, above all, not introducing a capped account charge.
Market isn't impressed either - HL shares well down today in a rising market.

jamesd

Rollinghome wrote: »

Not sure that would work:

"If you withdraw cash or transfer to a new manager with the result that your Hargreaves Lansdown account is worth less than £50 then your account will be closed, the closure fee collected and any balance returned to you or transferred to your new provider."

Then closing and taking them to the FOS if they make the charge after a price increase for someone would be the way to go instead. Unless of course there are parts of their offering that make it best to keep some money with them, which is far from impossible.

I suppose I'll need to check the terms in more detail because I do have an account there that has less than £50 in it at the moment, even though I've far more there overall.