Is there a reason to keep paper share certificates? and is it easy to change platform with them?

refluxer

isayhello said:

Thanks @refluxer when you post them to Halifax do you use recorded delivery? How long does the process take from when you sent the shares to be able to see them electronically in your Halifax account?

I did think the Equniti sale price is high, so Halifax at £12.50 would be much cheaper, especially if there are no other charges for keeping the shares with them and transferring in.

Yes - you normally send the original certificate(s) and a couple of different transfer forms (downloaded from the website and printed out) for each holding via recorded delivery of some description for peace of mind. The transfer process for the Halifax takes 10 working days from receipt, so it obviously makes sense to do this at least a couple of weeks in advance of wanting to sell and possibly even more in the current situation.

If you were desperate to sell sooner than that, then selling your paper shares via Equiniti would be the quickest option (presuming that you've set up a dealing account and it's ready to use) but that will incur some pretty high dealing charges, as you've discovered. As I mentioned before, I think you can also sell in this way a bit cheaper via the Halifax but the dealing charges for paper will still be a lot higher than their standard online dealing fee.

Incidentally, Equiniti do offer other ways to hold and sell shares such as a Corporate Sponsored Nominee account. If you happen to own shares in one of the companies in the list on that link, then it allows you to hold the shares electronically with Equiniti but the rates to sell are a bit more favourable than their standard charges for selling paper certificates, at 1%, with a minimum of £20.

The likes of Halifax or x-o will still obviously be cheaper though, but you'll only be able to use them provided you've not committed to sending your certificates to Equiniti, as bowlhead99 alluded to in his last post.

isayhello

Thanks @refluxer and @bowlhead99 - the account I helped set up was just an online account which lets my relative see their holdings and information about the shares. We didn't have to send any paperwork to Equiniti. I do think the portal allows the shares to be sold on there though, I think I saw some options for it, I think maybe because they have a record that the shares do belong to my relative maybe they won't ask for the paperwork?

I probably will try to transfer to x-o when it's time to sell as I think the sale cost will be over £60.

refluxer

isayhello said:

Thanks @refluxer and @bowlhead99 - the account I helped set up was just an online account which lets my relative see their holdings and information about the shares. We didn't have to send any paperwork to Equiniti. I do think the portal allows the shares to be sold on there though, I think I saw some options for it, I think maybe because they have a record that the shares do belong to my relative maybe they won't ask for the paperwork?

I probably will try to transfer to x-o when it's time to sell as I think the sale cost will be over £60.

Even though they hold the details about your relative and their holdings on their system, I expect you'd still have to post the share certificates to Equiniti after selling via that particular service. If those shares were then to get lost in the post, things presumably get pretty complicated.

IMO, it makes more sense to set up an online share dealing nominee account with a reputable company such as the ones mentioned above and transfer your shares to them by post in advance because once they've received and processed them, the selling process is much more immediate and the costs involved are usually a lot less. As far as I can see, the only drawback to this process is that you're unable to sell the shares for a couple of weeks while it takes place. Just make sure you choose an account with no ongoing or inactivity fees if they only intend to buy or sell shares occasionally.

It's obviously up to your relative though - at least with you helping them set up an account with Equiniti, they now have a much easier way to sell than they did before so it's a step in the right direction.

pafpcg

refluxer said:

isayhello said:

Thanks @refluxer and @bowlhead99 - the account I helped set up was just an online account which lets my relative see their holdings and information about the shares. We didn't have to send any paperwork to Equiniti. I do think the portal allows the shares to be sold on there though, I think I saw some options for it, I think maybe because they have a record that the shares do belong to my relative maybe they won't ask for the paperwork?

I probably will try to transfer to x-o when it's time to sell as I think the sale cost will be over £60.

Even though they hold the details about your relative and their holdings on their system, I expect you'd still have to post the share certificates to Equiniti after selling via that particular service. If those shares were then to get lost in the post, things presumably get pretty complicated.

IMO, it makes more sense to set up an online share dealing nominee account with a reputable company such as the ones mentioned above and transfer your shares to them by post in advance because once they've received and processed them, the selling process is much more immediate and the costs involved are usually a lot less. As far as I can see, the only drawback to this process is that you're unable to sell the shares for a couple of weeks while it takes place. Just make sure you choose an account with no ongoing or inactivity fees if they only intend to buy or sell shares occasionally.

It's obviously up to your relative though - at least with you helping them set up an account with Equiniti, they now have a much easier way to sell than they did before so it's a step in the right direction.

Agree with what you've suggested but I think "a couple of weeks" may be a little too cautious.  I looked back at my history of sending certificates for sale at my share-dealing account at Jarvis X-O for this year: There were two transactions:
- first:  certificate posted* on a Thursday;  added to my account portfolio the following Monday and sold on the Wednesday.
- second:  posted on a Wednesday;  added to my portfolio on Thursday and sold on the Friday!  The proceeds were immediately used to buy a different equity, so everything completed within three days!

As a buy-and-hold investor, I'm a firm believer in using certificates for shares I intend to hold indefinitely.  Provided the certificates are stored securely (I keep mine in a small fire-proof safe along with other precious paperwork) and there are photocopies in the filing cabinet should I need to check anything, I'm happy to buy shares in my on-line account, convert them to certificates and then, when I'm ready to sell them, post them back to the on-line dealing account.  I held some Scottish Mortgage shares this way from 1993 until 2018.

The advantages of holding certificates in one's own name are:
- I'm on the register as the shareholder.  I get the annual reports and I can vote at AGMs.
- The dividends are paid directly to my bank account.  In the twenty-odd years of quarterly or semi-annual dividends for a spread of share holdings I can remember only one occasion when I had to chase for a missing dividend.  It is rare that the dividend doesn't appear on the appointed date; dividends for shares held in a broker's account are frequently late by a day or so and a week is not unusual (IWeb, I'm looking at you!).
- I think the "security" of holding the share assets with a broker is oversold.  A broker going into administration has happened several times in the last few years and the experience for the clients is not pleasant - check the 500+ pages of the thread on this forum about the collapse of SVS:  17 months later, we've still not completed the return of all assets.  Then there are the brokers who use the shares held in their nominee accounts in financial dealings such as share loans for stock shorting. 

* I use Royal Mail's First Class 'Signed For' service from my local Post Office -  it costs £1.90 for the paperwork for the certificate and transfer forms.

LobsterMemory

Bowlhead's right about still having to send in the certificates. Process is:
You sell the shares online via Equiniti
They send a contract note in the post with an SAE for you to send back the certs. Has to be done quickly (5 days?) or they'll reverse the transaction and charge you. 
They send you the proceeds and a new certificate for the balance of shares if, say, you sold half of your holding.

The cost and hassle of losing a certificate in the post would indeed be considerable but luckily didn't happen to me when using the supplied SAE which was just ordinary 1st class