any recommendations for a flexible stocks and shares isa?

d63

having spent ages and ages pondering which stocks and shares isa to open, i never thought to check whether any cash held inside it could be withdrawn and put back again flexible cash isa style, and, alas, it turns out that the iweb isa i opened isn't one of them. google tells me that hargeave-lansdown has such a one, charles-stanley as well, but could anyone recommend any others, or point me toward a list of suitable providers? 

tacpot12

Sorry, I don't know of a list, but I can recommend AJ Bell. Their service is good. 

I don't understand your requirement to be able to withdraw cash and put back again. No ISA allows you to invest more than £20K per tax year, and no S&S ISA that I'm aware of prevents you from withdrawing money, but making further deposits in the year, providing you aren't putting in more than £20K in that tax year. Are you sure the iWeb S&S ISA only allow one deposit per tax year? 

Alexland

Vanguard's ISA is flexible but as S&S investing is a medium to long term activity it's not really suited to being a pot that you can dip into whenever you need the money.
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/need-help/answer/is-the-vanguard-isa-a-flexible-isa

masonic

tacpot12 said:

I don't understand your requirement to be able to withdraw cash and put back again. No ISA allows you to invest more than £20K per tax year, and no S&S ISA that I'm aware of prevents you from withdrawing money, but making further deposits in the year, providing you aren't putting in more than £20K in that tax year. Are you sure the iWeb S&S ISA only allow one deposit per tax year? 

The iWeb S&S ISA allows multiple deposits over the tax year subject to the total deposited being no more than the annual allowance. That's not what the OP is asking about though. You cannot, for example, deposit £20k in an iWeb S&S, then withdraw £10k and then replace that £10k all within the same tax year without breaching the annual allowance. If iWeb offered a flexible S&S ISA, then that would be permitted, and that is what 'flexible' means in the context of ISAs.

I don't really understand the need for flexibility in S&S ISAs either, other than for those who wish to avoid investing in bonds and therefore hold cash for the defensive part of their portfolio. Being able to pull out money and save it in a standard savings account for most of the tax year will result in more interest being earned than if it were left in most S&S ISA accounts. If you have <£20k allocated to defensive assets, then the easiest solution is to defer contributing it to a S&S ISA, or if your ISA provider permits partial transfers, transfer the cash as previous year money to a cash ISA.

d63 said:

having spent ages and ages pondering which stocks and shares isa to open, i never thought to check whether any cash held inside it could be withdrawn and put back again flexible cash isa style, and, alas, it turns out that the iweb isa i opened isn't one of them. google tells me that hargeave-lansdown has such a one, charles-stanley as well, but could anyone recommend any others, or point me toward a list of suitable providers? 

Charles Stanley Direct is indeed one option, although not as cheap as they once were.

The Hargreaves Lansdown S&S ISA is NOT flexible: "Just remember that if you take money out of your HL Stocks and Shares ISA, you’ll lose that portion of your ISA allowance." https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/isa/frequently-asked-questions (How to withdraw money from your ISA)

d63

masonic said:

. . . .

Charles Stanley Direct is indeed one option, although not as cheap as they once were.

The Hargreaves Lansdown S&S ISA is NOT flexible: "Just remember that if you take money out of your HL Stocks and Shares ISA, you’ll lose that portion of your ISA allowance." https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/isa/frequently-asked-questions (How to withdraw money from your ISA)

ah! thankyou for that. sadly i did not read any further than one of the search results mr google came up with, --- 

"A 60 second guide to Stocks & Shares ISAs:

The tax-efficient ISA wrapper is flexible, you can withdraw money whenever you like and invest to suit your needs – for income, growth or a combination of the ..."

https://www.hl.co.uk/news/articles/archive/a-60-second-guide-to-stocks-and-shares-isas

 oops!

eskbanker

d63 said:

masonic said:

. . . .

Charles Stanley Direct is indeed one option, although not as cheap as they once were.

The Hargreaves Lansdown S&S ISA is NOT flexible: "Just remember that if you take money out of your HL Stocks and Shares ISA, you’ll lose that portion of your ISA allowance." https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/isa/frequently-asked-questions (How to withdraw money from your ISA)

ah! thankyou for that. sadly i did not read any further than one of the search results mr google came up with, --- 

"A 60 second guide to Stocks & Shares ISAs:

The tax-efficient ISA wrapper is flexible, you can withdraw money whenever you like and invest to suit your needs – for income, growth or a combination of the ..."

https://www.hl.co.uk/news/articles/archive/a-60-second-guide-to-stocks-and-shares-isas

 oops!

That article is dated April 2014, two years before the introduction of Flexible ISAs, but to be fair HL make it clear at the top of the piece that it's archived:

Archived article
Tax, investments and pension rules can change over time so the information below may not be current. This article was correct at the time of publishing, however, it may no longer reflect our views on this topic.

Arguably HL ought to take steps to get an article like that out of the reaches of Google's indexing engine, but ultimately it was unhelpful for the government to coopt a generically positive adjective for specific meaningful use....

spaceaarvark

I am surprised that anyone responding to this topic would question the requirement for a flexible S&S ISA. The fact is they exist and they serve a purpose.

When I moved house the buyer for my old house couldn't complete on the same date as the seller of my new house; they could complete a week later, but that would mean me owning 2 houses for a week.

Fortunately I had a healthy flexible S&S ISA so I was able to sell a large chunk of shares, take out a sizeable chunk of money, buy the new house and then return the money and buy replacement shares when my old house was sold.

This is obviously an extraordinary circumstance, but it makes absolute sense to prepare for such an eventuality and get a flexible ISA if you can.

My provider is EQI (although the name seems to change every few years). The have low fees and have always seemed like a good one to deal with. Unfortunately I cannot recommend them as it looks like they are about to sell their business on to Interactive Investor, whose S&S ISA is NOT flexible and whose fees, for me anyway, will be higher.