Hargreaves Lansdown - Absolute disgrace on ISA transfer times

dunstonh

 I don't see why there should be such a massive discrepancy between the transfer time for my SIPP and My ISA. My holdings are FTSE listed shares, could not be more vanilla

The way of doing it in pensions is different to ISAs and unwrapped.   You never used to be able to do it in pensions and is a relatively new thing.  So, timing differences are to be expected.   Plus, as I said, shares tend to be longer than funds as registrars are typically slower on shares.

£150 compensation sounds jammy - Nonsense, when they have lost me hundreds more than that because I have not been able to buy or sell in that particular ISA. They themselves have said that they are dealing with lots of transfers, presumably because of customer dissatisfaction.

They have not cost you hundreds.  It was your choice to use in-specie transfers knowing that it could take up to 6 months (there are usually warnings about the timescale).    If you wanted a quicker way to trade the cash transfer should have been used.

jonb83

Reached a conclusion on this transfer. I eventually contacted CEO of each firm very politely. Then magically everything got sorted within a matter of days. I have to admit I was very impressed with both CEOs that responded on the same day... Didn't have to contact ombudsman in the end.

Chordeiles

Here's the history of my transfer from Hargreaves Lansdown to Alliance Trust Savings (I had previously taken the trouble to ascertain that all 8 holdings were available equally on the Alliance Trust platform):

  15th May 2017 - posted transfer request to Alliance Trust Savings.

  22nd December 2017 - last holding and cash balance arrived at Alliance Trust.

If you think that 222 days is outrageous for an in-specie SIPP transfer then I'd agree.  Hargreaves Lansdown consistently blamed Alliance Trust for the delays but in fact Alliance Trust were pretty darned good at keeping me informed so I could see that the !!!!!!-ups were generally at Hargreaves Lansdown.  In fact I started to believe that HL have a whole department dedicated to losing SIPP transfer documents.  The final phase of getting the fund managers to re-register the funds appears to have taken only about 70 days for the slowest, which is perhaps the sort of delay one might expect to suffer for an in-specie transfer.  I could add that the one share (an Investment Trust) within my holdings was by far the quickest to arrive at ATS.

But that's not the end of the story.  When my SIPP at Hargreaves Lansdown "closed" in December 2017 I lost all visibility of it at the HL portal.  So it wasn't obvious to me that two dividends were paid into Hargreaves Lansdown in January 2018.  Which of course should have been promptly forwarded to Alliance Trust.  But they weren't.  So I still have over £500 sitting idly in my SIPP at Hargreaves Lansdown, which I finally noticed as it does show on the quarterly statements even though it's not visible online.

Now they are dragging their feet about getting this cash to my new SIPP provider.  I'm not accepting lockdown as an excuse as this should have been done back in February 2018.

In contrast transferring SIPPs and ISAs "in-specie" to Hargreaves Lansdown some years earlier (from Fidelity and Selftrade) was quick and trouble free, and dividends paid after transfer finalisation followed automatically.  Who would have guessed that HL are sharper at getting new customers than losing them !

Right now we'd really like to get my wife's SIPP out of the clutches of Hargreaves Lansdown.  Certainly before she starts drawdown.  But I dread to think how long it will take at the moment.
The above experience suggests that the "in-specie" element added maybe 10 weeks to a transfer approaching 32 weeks.  Thus a cash transfer might take 22 weeks (o.k., I accept something has to go very wrong but it clearly does happen).  Would I want my wife to be out of the market for 22 weeks (whilst the hoped-for recovery is happening ?) ?  The losses could be many tens of thousands of pounds (yes, she's lucky enough to have a few quid in her SIPP).

Chordeiles

Chordeiles said:

Who would have guessed that HL are sharper at getting new customers than losing them !

Hargreaves Lansdown have a page of "useful forms" on their website at:
https://www.hl.co.uk/contact-us/forms
The metatext for this page (designed to help searches to find it) states "All our account management and application forms on one handy page".  Guess what, the SIPP "Transfer Out" form isn't there.  It's as if Hargreaves Lansdown borrowed their motto from Royston Vasey !

badger09

Chordeiles said:

Chordeiles said:

Who would have guessed that HL are sharper at getting new customers than losing them !

Hargreaves Lansdown have a page of "useful forms" on their website at:
https://www.hl.co.uk/contact-us/forms
The metatext for this page (designed to help searches to find it) states "All our account management and application forms on one handy page".  Guess what, the SIPP "Transfer Out" form isn't there.  It's as if Hargreaves Lansdown borrowed their motto from Royston Vasey !

I haven't read the whole thread, but I really don't understand why you are surprised that HL don't have the 'SIPP Transfer Out' form on their website.

AFAIK, no SIPP provider will have such a form, as the transfer is always initiated by the receiving provider.

dunstonh

Chordeiles said:

Chordeiles said:

Who would have guessed that HL are sharper at getting new customers than losing them !

Hargreaves Lansdown have a page of "useful forms" on their website at:
https://www.hl.co.uk/contact-us/forms
The metatext for this page (designed to help searches to find it) states "All our account management and application forms on one handy page".  Guess what, the SIPP "Transfer Out" form isn't there.  It's as if Hargreaves Lansdown borrowed their motto from Royston Vasey !

Discharge forms haven't been required by most providers for some years now.  So, there is no need for HL to include them on their website.  Plus, going back to when discharge forms were needed, they were usually personalised and not blank forms.  

So, criticism of HL in that respect is unfair.

Chordeiles

dunstonh said:
Discharge forms haven't been required by most providers for some years now.  So, there is no need for HL to include them on their website.  Plus, going back to when discharge forms were needed, they were usually personalised and not blank forms.   

So, criticism of HL in that respect is unfair.

I don't know about "most" providers but Hargreaves Lansdown most certainly do still require a discharge form (which they call a "Pension Transfer Out Form").  Of course it tells them nothing that wasn't on the transfer application that was filled out for the receiving provider.  Sometime in the middle of the long-drawn-out transfer that I described above HL sent me such a form.  In the post, to ensure a bit more delay (though those few days turned out to be a mere "drop in the ocean" ).
Interactive Investor are a bit more savvy than were Alliance Trust, they realise that HL will require this form along the way, so they ask for it up front.  That's why I was looking for it.  My wife had to ask for it.  Only took them 3 days to get an electronic copy to her.

Chordeiles

Never mind that my wife had been asked to send the HL "Transfer Out" form with her transfer application to Interactive Investor, one has arrived in the post from HL this morning.  D'oh !

Before the HL supporters out there jump in to defend them I'll admit that (of course) I can't prove that Interactive Investor had remembered to send the form to HL.

I'll also give HL credit for sending this first class (took 2 days) and incuding a first class return envelope.  Better still it has arrived VERY MUCH earlier in the process than did the same form in my own epic transfer saga, so we are daring to be optimistic !

Chordeiles

They are getting better !

My SIPP took 222 days to transfer out (starting in May 2017), but actually over three years if we include the dividends they forgot to send.

My wife's SIPP transfer took 265 days (starting in May 2020).  Hardly an improvement there (yes they used the pandemic restrictions as an excuse), but it was all done and dusted as was entirely composed of accumulation units, so no dividends to deal with after cash was transferred.

Then (in the moment of euphoria of Harry Kane's goal against Germany) I initiated a transfer of my ISA from HL to II.  Now (only 17 day later) all my 9 holdings are all showing at II, with only the cash to follow.  I won't pester them yet to transfer the cash as I'm expecting it to be augmented by dividends paid within the next two weeks.

So maybe ISAs move faster than SIPPs ?

Or maybe the open-ended funds in the SIPPs caused some of the delay (our ISAs are currently all Investment Trusts and ETFs, to keep HL costs down).

Or maybe the regulator has given them a kicking ?

Either way I am very pleasantly surprised at the way that my ISA transfer has gone so far.  Though it's a bit weird that my HL account today shows six of my original nine holdings, all with negative quantities equivalent to the actual holdings I used to have there.  Maybe they are now trying to move TOO fast

Chordeiles

But they still need a prod to forward dividends (where the ex-div date falls before shares were registered away from HL but the payment date falls after the ISA cash balance has been transferred).