Transferring Lifetime ISA at Nottingham Building Society to Moneybox (nightmare)

FolkandToon

Hi, I wanted to ask, has anyone had a Lifetime Isa with the Nottingham Building Society and tried to have this transferred to Moneybox? I know NBS have a slightly better interest rate but as I have a help to buy isa as well I believe the NBS won’t accept transfers from other accounts so hence I’m trying to switch to Moneybox for greater accessibility. I signed the form, i confirmed i wanted to transfer back at the start of June. It’s now August and I’m no further forward. I’ve called the NBS, they said they’ve received no such request to transfer my account, Moneybox say they can’t get a hold of NBS. I appreciate these are exceptional times but NBS said this usual transfer would take 2 weeks. It’s taken 2 months!! Has anyone been through this? I’m really not sure of either side. Moneybox come across as amateurs and NBS are obstructive because they have a special team that mere mortals can’t speak to? This is a warning to anyone transferring LISA’s as my Currrent Account was less hassle than this. Many Thanks to anyone. 

masonic

Unless you are intending to use >£16k of your annual ISA allowance, then it is preferable to move money from a HTB ISA by withdrawing and depositing, since the £4k LISA allowance is an absolute limit including transfers from other types of ISA. The easiest resolution to this situation would be to simply cancel your transfer request.

If you do need to move the HTB ISA money by transfer to preserve your £20k ISA allowance, then if you haven't paid into the NBS LISA in this tax year, the transfer is no impediment to paying into your Moneybox LISA, and in fact works in your interest since you'll earn more interest while the money is held by NBS. Only if you wish to imminently transfer money from your HTB ISA to your LISA and cannot do this via withdrawal because you have £20k of new money to pay into a cash ISA (for example) would you be best to take the action you have taken. But I can't think of a good reason for the urgency unless you were planning to buy a home within the next few months, which would rather negate the need to put a large sum of money into a cash ISA.

Does Moneybox hold the correct details for NBS? How many times have Moneybox written to, and/or attempted to phone NBS? It's hard to see who is at fault here, but equally, it's hard to see why you'd want this transfer to be completed (a) at all, and (b) quickly.

FolkandToon

Hi, thank you for taking an interest in my query. Oh I’m definitely cancelling with Moneybox, they claim they have emailed and called NBS multiple times over these 2 months (every time I’ve chased them) and aren’t able to get a hold of them which to me seems laughable. You get the same fob off story so they clearly don’t want my transfer. They have all my correct information that I hold with NBS so i have no idea what the problem is or who’s at fault but someone is and I think the financial ombudsman is the only middle man to investigate properly and bring whoever is at fault to account as I don’t believe I should be doing all the leg work over a simple savings transfer. Moneybox appealed because of accessibility they allowed transfers from other accounts like HTB ISA’s so I could smash it all together in future as and when I am in a position to buy which NBS don’t. There’s no rush at the moment but I’d like to be doing this soon to a provider so I’m not fighting through this in future as buying and moving is stressful enough without worrying about this as well. I don’t trust either party but at some point i will need to change from NBS to another provider that can accept my HTB ISA Transferred and it would be nice to be online as my old fashioned book and branch setup with NBS is a obsolete approach to a mostly youth driven saving scheme, especially in this covid-19 world. Thank you for taking an interest, more that Moneybox or NBS have done. 

masonic

FolkandToon said:

Oh I’m definitely cancelling with Moneybox, they claim they have emailed and called NBS multiple times over these 2 months (every time I’ve chased them) and aren’t able to get a hold of them which to me seems laughable. You get the same fob off story so they clearly don’t want my transfer. They have all my correct information that I hold with NBS so i have no idea what the problem is or who’s at fault but someone is and I think the financial ombudsman is the only middle man to investigate properly and bring whoever is at fault to account as I don’t believe I should be doing all the leg work over a simple savings transfer.

I was asking if you'd checked that they have the correct postal address and telephone number for NBS. The transfer would be completed by post, so this is the most important piece of information to verify. But better that you just cancel the transfer now.

FolkandToon said:

Moneybox appealed because of accessibility they allowed transfers from other accounts like HTB ISA’s so I could smash it all together in future as and when I am in a position to buy which NBS don’t. There’s no rush at the moment but I’d like to be doing this soon to a provider so I’m not fighting through this in future as buying and moving is stressful enough without worrying about this as well. I don’t trust either party but at some point i will need to change from NBS to another provider that can accept my HTB ISA Transferred and it would be nice to be online as my old fashioned book and branch setup with NBS is a obsolete approach to a mostly youth driven saving scheme, especially in this covid-19 world. Thank you for taking an interest, more that Moneybox or NBS have done. 

As mentioned in my previous post, the best way to 'smash it all together' is to withdraw £4k from the HTB ISA and pay that money into your LISA, which you can do with NBS. You have not stated that you are saving more than £16k in a cash ISA per tax year, so I'm assuming that's not the case. You cannot transfer more than £4k per tax year into your LISA from a HTB ISA with any provider.

FolkandToon

Ah I didn’t know I could do that. I just thought when NBS say they don’t accept transfers that I had to move. No I’m no where near the 16k threshold. That’s very helpful. Thank you very much Masonic. 

richardsmith911

Oh dear, this sounds painful. Given the current situation, there might be a back long from both parties. I have you completed MoneyBox transfer in forms? If so, then Moneybox should initiate the transfer NBS. It's a shame but this kind of admin it might be worth you trying to stay on top of it and calling NBS telling them you want to transfer out to MoneyBox and for them to get in touch to initiate this.