Strange activity on my Fidelity account

colsten

badger09 wrote: »

That's not my experience with HL.

My tax relief just sits there in SIPP capital account awaiting investment.

Same for me on my SIPP with HL. My max annual deposit is £2,880, too. May be they are scared of us old bats and wouldn't dare making investment decisions for us .

dunroving

Thank you for the helpful suggestions as to possible explanations.


Fidelity seems to be one of those providers that gives you the HMRC top-up only when they receive it from HMRC (which so far seems to be anything between 7 and 10 weeks after the initial investment was placed).


Past HMRC top-ups to my account (two so far) have been put into my SIPP cash park or whatever the cash account is in my SIPP. I then gave instructions on what to invest it in.


This £4,000 HMRC top-up was linked to about three separate investment "episodes" more than two months ago, involving about a half-dozen funds (none of which was AXA Framlington Biotech).


I invested £1,800 in AXA Framlington Biotech about 2 or 3 weeks ago ... I wonder if some computer glitch has some way associated that last SIPP investment with this subsequent HMRC top-up?


Unfortunately by the time I was able to make a call to Fidelity, their offices were closed. Tomorrow I have a free morning so will call them.

dunroving

I just got off the phone to Fidelity. Despite pressing the right buttons to get through to the right person for enquiries about my pension account, the person at the end of the line had limited access to information about my account. He couldn't for example, see the transactions on his screen.

So, he has passed it off to the SIPP team and they are supposed to get back to me. I'll keep you informed.

badger09

colsten wrote: »

Same for me on my SIPP with HL. My max annual deposit is £2,880, too. May be they are scared of us old bats and wouldn't dare making investment decisions for us .

That's probably it. They're so right to be afraid..... very afraid

dunroving

So, after two further calls involving a total of 4 different Fidelity staff, I have now got to the bottom of it (sort of).

Supposedly, my SIPP is set up so that when any HMRC tax rebates arrive, they are immediately invested 100% in whatever fund I most recently invested in to top up my SIPP.

Except that when the last HMRC tax rebates (two on the same day) arrived, they were NOT automatically invested in the most recently invested fund. Coincidentally, four days later, I personally actively invested that cash into the most recently-invested fund, when I realised I had HMRC cash in my SIPP (I distinctly remember doing that because this was the first time I had encountered what happens with the HMRC tax rebate when it arrives - specifically, it was sitting in my SIPP cash account).

Apparently, if I want incoming HMRC cash rebates to be deposited in cash until I decide what to do with them, I have to send a secure message to that effect every time I top up my SIPP.

This seems a bonkers default arrangement. Why would someone want every penny of HMRC rebate to be invested in whatever happens to be the last fund they invested in as the default position? Before that loony default, I'd have thought most people would want it either (a) left as cash until the investor decides what to invest it in, or (b) automatically invested in whatever fund was the original investment that generated the HMRC rebate.

badger09

dunroving wrote: »

So, after two further calls involving a total of 4 different Fidelity staff, I have now got to the bottom of it (sort of).

Supposedly, my SIPP is set up so that when any HMRC tax rebates arrive, they are immediately invested 100% in whatever fund I most recently invested in to top up my SIPP.

Except that when the last HMRC tax rebates (two on the same day) arrived, they were NOT automatically invested in the most recently invested fund. Coincidentally, four days later, I personally actively invested that cash into the most recently-invested fund, when I realised I had HMRC cash in my SIPP (I distinctly remember doing that because this was the first time I had encountered what happens with the HMRC tax rebate when it arrives - specifically, it was sitting in my SIPP cash account).

Apparently, if I want incoming HMRC cash rebates to be deposited in cash until I decide what to do with them, I have to send a secure message to that effect every time I top up my SIPP.

This seems a bonkers default arrangement. Why would someone want every penny of HMRC rebate to be invested in whatever happens to be the last fund they invested in as the default position? Before that loony default, I'd have thought most people would want it either (a) left as cash until the investor decides what to invest it in, or (b) automatically invested in whatever fund was the original investment that generated the HMRC rebate.

Precisely

That's why I was surprised to learn that its such common practice.

So, if you split your SIPP contribution over say 5 funds, and made the investments all on the same day, would Fidelity split the tax relief over the same 5 funds?

If you split over 5 funds, but invested in funds 1 - 4 on one day and fund 5 on the following day, would Fidelity invest the tax relief in fund 5, completely destroying your carefully planned allocation?

Just curious

dunroving

badger09 wrote: »

Precisely

That's why I was surprised to learn that its such common practice.

So, if you split your SIPP contribution over say 5 funds, and made the investments all on the same day, would Fidelity split the tax relief over the same 5 funds?

If you split over 5 funds, but invested in funds 1 - 4 on one day and fund 5 on the following day, would Fidelity invest the tax relief in fund 5, completely destroying your carefully planned allocation?

Just curious

In both situations they would put it all into whichever fund you invested in last. As you say it completely screws up your carefully thought out investment strategy.

badger09

They ought to offer the option to have tax relief held in the cash account until you revoke that choice, rather than have to make that choice every time you add to your SIPP.

Perhaps they haven't because there's little demand for it, but that would surprise me :cool:

Lomcevak

badger09 wrote: »

So, if you split your SIPP contribution over say 5 funds, and made the investments all on the same day, would Fidelity split the tax relief over the same 5 funds?

Yes, at least if you're investing monthly - my DD goes out on the 10th of each month with allocations to five funds, a couple of days later they make purchases (well ... four Fidelity ones on one day, and L&G multi-index one day later, for some reason) and then when the tax relief turns up they split it the same way

As far as i've seen they do the same thing for ad-hoc top ups too. I don't do as many of these, but I've not seen any tax relief directed to a single fund, always split pro rata

...they then send me a letter for each day of purchases, so each month I get at least four letters from Fidelity, and up to eight if I make any ad-hoc top ups too. Seem to be single-handedly trying to keep Royal Mail in business.

dunroving

Lomcevak wrote: »

Yes, at least if you're investing monthly - my DD goes out on the 10th of each month with allocations to five funds, a couple of days later they make purchases (well ... four Fidelity ones on one day, and L&G multi-index one day later, for some reason) and then when the tax relief turns up they split it the same way

As far as i've seen they do the same thing for ad-hoc top ups too. I don't do as many of these, but I've not seen any tax relief directed to a single fund, always split pro rata

...they then send me a letter for each day of purchases, so each month I get at least four letters from Fidelity, and up to eight if I make any ad-hoc top ups too. Seem to be single-handedly trying to keep Royal Mail in business.

See, posts like this make me think they are BS'ing me ... nothing they have told me so far makes sense or sounds true - plus, I have looked through every online document and secure message, plus all of my Settings, and nowhere can I find any notification that the default strategy is to put any and all incoming tax accrual into "the last fund invested in".