Platform cost of s&s isa - vanguard lifestrategy

Rollinghome

ffacoffipawb wrote: »

Try investment trusts in an ISA with H-L as the fee is capped at £3.75 pm (£45 pa). Can also be paid from a fund and share account so doesn't eat into the ISA. That's what I do.

Restricting your investments to ITs alone and avoiding all UT/OEICs, solely in order to avoid HL's high fees, doesn't seem a great investment strategy. Particularly when, as others have pointed out, you could invest elsewhere in both funds and ITs as appropriate for far less anyway.

If you have decided to restrict yourself to ITs alone to save holding fees then you could be using a broker such as SVS where you would avoid them altogether. Your cost for holding wouldn't be that £45.00 pa required by HL but £0.00 pa. You would also be paying just £5.75 to buy and sell your ITs, less than half that charged by HL, and not be subject to various other charges made by HL including account closure fees.

Of course you might miss those letters from HL trying to flog you investments such VCTs that still pay them juicy commission - http://www.moneyobserver.com/news/05-03-2015/commission-confusion-leaves-vct-investor-bewildered

masonic

Rollinghome wrote: »

Of course you might miss those letters from HL trying to flog you investments such VCTs that still pay them juicy commission - http://www.moneyobserver.com/news/05-03-2015/commission-confusion-leaves-vct-investor-bewildered

Nobody need worry about missing out on those. I left HL over a year ago, but remain on their marketing list.

DominicH

I have an ISA with HL, and I simply asked them to stop sending me literature, which they did.
They are pricy for funds, but OK if you're mainly in ETFs and shares. It's not just about the headling price, though. I have accounts with other smaller outfits and I do worry sometimes about what would happen if they went out of business. Some of them seem a bit Mickey Mouse. In theory you'd be OK because the holdings are linked to you on the underlying platform, but it would still be hassle and stress. HL, on the other hand, I'm pretty confident they will still be around in ten, fifteen years.

collingbone614

What is it that would happen if your platform went bust? Say if you were with any of the platforms that are discussed on here - iWeb, Charles Stanley, AJ Bell, HL, III, etc.

masonic

omnirife wrote: »

What is it that would happen if your platform went bust? Say if you were with any of the platforms that are discussed on here - iWeb, Charles Stanley, AJ Bell, HL, III, etc.

If the platform went bust, most likely the accounts would be taken over by another provider. There would likely be a time during which accounts would be inaccessible. Fraud would be more of a concern, since that would probably lead to missing holdings in the nominee account and require FSCS intervention, but since the loss would be spread between all investors in the affected investments, the £50k per person allowance would probably cover it unless the fraud was really massive.

Ben12345

Thank you all for the responses.
Think moving to Charles Stanley seems to suit me best.
Can I check:

masonic wrote: »

(might as well lump it all into lifestrategy for the move)

Does this mean move my other fund into life strategy before exiting so I only pay one lot of £25? Can I then re split them once moved?
Thank you again

masonic

Ben12345 wrote: »

Does this mean move my other fund into life strategy before exiting so I only pay one lot of £25? Can I then re split them once moved?

Yes, and yes you can sell a bit of the lifestrategy in order to buy back your other holding, or keep lifestrategy as it is and buy your other holding back using new money.

Chickereeeee

Rollinghome wrote: »

Restricting your investments to ITs alone and avoiding all UT/OEICs, solely in order to avoid HL's high fees, doesn't seem a great investment strategy. Particularly when, as others have pointed out, you could invest elsewhere in both funds and ITs as appropriate for far less anyway.

Fully agree. Plus, if you hold ITs instead of Funds, you get clobbered by stamp duty, which is more than the annual platform charge...

I hate being resticted by the platform/charges in whether I buy funds or ITs.

C

jimjames

bowlhead99 wrote: »

The platform tells you how many units you have and what they are worth, and lets you buy or sell some. Every other platform out there does that too. It is the point of a platform. HL just know they will get away with charging nearly half a percent for it because of slick marketing.

It sounds very simple but I can fully understand why someone would pay HL a premium for their vastly superior website - at least compared to Fidelity/Cavendish.

One seemingly obvious option that Fidelity don't even have (or I've not been able to find) is a full transaction list. So the only way to view your transactions is to click on every investment and view them individually. With HL and Cofunds you can easily see what you have bought and when, in a single list in one place. Maybe not such an issue with 1 fund but overall usability of the HL site is much better especially for someone starting out.

JohnRo

Is that using fidelity lite Jim? The one reason I ditched Cavendish was for that very reason. I suspect the full function fidelity account portal is vastly superior.