Lifetime ISAs guide

Alexland

jonon wrote: »

After you are 39 years old, can you still open accounts with new stocks lisa providers?

Sorry for the delay replying. Yes, if the new LISA provider's IT systems allow you to open the account. Some are basic and just have a blanket stop on opening an account if over 40 even if required to initiate the transfer.

Can you still open and move your lisa between providers after you are 50 and older?

Yes it should be possible but there is a risk that if it becomes a legacy niche product more providers might stop accepting new business inbound transfers. In such a situation you would hope the government would provide a route to transfering into the latest products.

Alex

KittyMoma

Alexland wrote: »

Sorry for the delay replying. So it sounds like you have made gains on the LISA above the £15k of contributions and government bonuses? If so is there any particular reason you want to change providers? We moved our LISAs from Nutmeg to HL (when HL were still accepting LISA transfers) for more choice and eventually lower capped platform fees once the accounts were big enough. AJ Bell YouInvest is also a good platform who have capped fees on exchange traded assets and accept LISA transfers. I don't see the point of having multiple LISA accounts as the value is relatively small and there can be economies of scale from capped fees.

Alex

Thank you for the reply.

I read somewhere on the forums someone saying not to bother with Nutmeg so it made me start to wonder. It hasn't been doing that well so far with occasional negatives but the gains have shot up in the last month and now apparently the time weighted average return is 6.4% as of today. It used to be more in the 3-4% range.
I think their fees are slightly higher than others but other than those reasons, I'd quite happily keep it in one place and not worry about it.
So it's not worth trying to move or open a new account?
By the time it matures, the capital should be total £65k including government bonus.

Alexland

With S&S LISAs there is less choice and the platforms that do offer them such as Nutmeg, HL and AJ Bell tend to be more expensive on low valuations than the lowest cost S&S ISA platforms such as Vanguard Investor and Cavendish.

However as your LISA grows then it is clearly advantageous to move to AJ Bell as you can cap your platform fees on exchange traded assets at £30 pa (plus £9.95 trade fees) compared to 0.45% for Nutmeg fixed allocation portfolio management.

Alex

KittyMoma

Alexland wrote: »

With S&S LISAs there is less choice and the platforms that do offer them such as Nutmeg, HL and AJ Bell tend to be more expensive on low valuations than the lowest cost S&S ISA platforms such as Vanguard Investor and Cavendish.

However as your LISA grows then it is clearly advantageous to move to AJ Bell as you can cap your platform fees on exchange traded assets at £30 pa (plus £9.95 trade fees) compared to 0.45% for Nutmeg fixed allocation portfolio management.

Alex

Just looked into transferring it over to AJ Bell. Unfortunately I can't because I'm over 40. Looks like I'm stuck with Nutmeg forever
Oh well, worth the try, thanks for your help!

N1ckS

Why can't you transfer to AJ Bell? I thought you could open a new lisa after 40 as long as you transfer funds from a previously opened lisa?

eskbanker

N1ckS wrote: »

Why can't you transfer to AJ Bell? I thought you could open a new lisa after 40 as long as you transfer funds from a previously opened lisa?

That's what the scheme rules say, but I'm pretty sure that it's been reported on here before that some providers haven't implemented them properly and can't accept applications from 40+ year olds - can't recall if this was deliberate or in error....

jsinc

"You can transfer cash and investments from a Lifetime ISA with another provider to your AJ Bell Youinvest Lifetime ISA. However we can only accept a Lifetime ISA transfer if you're aged under 40"
https://www.youinvest.co.uk/sites/default/files/useful-forms/AJBYI_LISA_key_features.pdf (p.5)

N1ckS

Thank you, how strange to deny yourself new customers!

Alexland

I seem to recall that AJ Bell told another forum user that taking applications for people over 40 who have an existing LISA to transfer is in their backlog of future software enhancements.

In the meantime there is no harm sending them an email asking when they hope to deliver this functionality. At the very least it will show some market demand.

You could also ask HL if there is any timeline for restarting inbound LISA transfers.

In the meantime keep checking back on the HL and AJ Bell websites to see if they can offer you a transfer.

Alex

eskbanker

eskbanker wrote: »

That's what the scheme rules say, but I'm pretty sure that it's been reported on here before that some providers haven't implemented them properly and can't accept applications from 40+ year olds - can't recall if this was deliberate or in error....

Alexland wrote: »

I seem to recall that AJ Bell told another forum user that taking applications for people over 40 who have an existing LISA to transfer is in their backlog of future software enhancements.

In the meantime there is no harm sending them an email asking when they hope to deliver this functionality. At the very least it will show some market demand.

Found it! All the way back in May last year, so their not looking at fixing it "for a few months" was over-optimistic....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=74299698#post74299698

claire*** wrote: »

Just to clairify I think its the providers that are unable to open the accounts rather than government rules. This is the email response I received from AJ Bell yesterday:-


Unfortunately our LISA application was set up to not allow over 40s to proceed with it. This has yet to be amended in the application so will still not allow anyone over 40 to open the account, and I'm afraid it's not due to be looked at for a few months, As such, you won't be able to open a LISA with us just yet.

As we've been receiving a few of these queries lately, we are pushing for the application to be amended sooner rather than later but I still wouldn't be able to confirm exactly when this will happen.

Edit: wonder how often she misspells 'clarify' like that!