Can anyone cite this flexible ISA rule?

colsten

chrood said:

The other thing I am wondering is whether or not Barclays was allowed to make this transfer. When I made the original request, I had £20k in my Barclays account in cash and I indicated this on the form. At the time that they made the transfer, I had £10k in the account and it was invested in a fund. Apart from the amounts not matching, was Barclays allowed to sell my fund when I hadn't authorised this on the transfer form?

Why in heaven's name did you invest £10K in a fund in the middle of a transfer? The transfer would in any case have to have been for your total current year subscription, as partial transfers of current year's ISAs are no permitted. I am also quite certain that one of the transfer conditions you agreed to was that if AJ Bell couldn't do an in-specie transfer, your investment would be sold and the cash proceeds will be transferred.

I suspect there are a few other details that you haven't shared which would probably explain why Barclays don't want to re-open an investment ISA for you. If you still feel you have a valid case for complaints. you will have to first raise these with Barclays and with AJ Bell individually. Both have 8 weeks to respond to your complaints. If they don't respond in that timeframe, or don't respond to your satisfaction, you can then take your complaints to the FOS. TBH, though, with the information you have provided, it is not easy to see who is at fault, and I would expect that the two ISA providers have different versions of what happened.

masonic

chrood said:

It is clear to me that Barclays and AJ Bell have both messed up and won't take responsibility so I think maybe I should escalate both complaints to the Ombudsman. Do you know if they are happy to look at two complaints with different banks together in situations like this? I don't know what will happen to the money that was sent to Barclays but I presume that either Barclays will reopen my ISA after all and put it there or send it back to AJ Bell again, surely I can't be at risk of this money being taken out of the ISA wrapper.

You would only need to escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman if one or both firms do not resolve the situation to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of the date of your formal complaint. Until you've given them 8 weeks, or the firm has given you a letter of deadlock, you can't escalate your complaint.

What is it you want to achieve? If you still want your S&S ISA at AJ Bell then it seems sensible to get them to take the money back from Barclays and open the S&S ISA as planned. Given Barclays won't reopen the S&S ISA then this seems the easiest solution.

chrood said:

The other thing I am wondering is whether or not Barclays was allowed to make this transfer. When I made the original request, I had £20k in my Barclays account in cash and I indicated this on the form. At the time that they made the transfer, I had £10k in the account and it was invested in a fund. Apart from the amounts not matching, was Barclays allowed to sell my fund when I hadn't authorised this on the transfer form?

It depends on the instruction on the transfer form. The AJ Bell's transfer form merely specifies "approximate transfer value", "this is a [full/partial] transfer", "please transfer my S&S ISA to AJ Bell Youinvest as [investments/cash/both]". If you ticked the full transfer box and the cash box, then Barclays would have authority to sell any investments you held. If there were investments held in the ISA then their value could fluctuate, so the approximate transfer value would be meaningless.

chrood

colsten said:

chrood said:

The other thing I am wondering is whether or not Barclays was allowed to make this transfer. When I made the original request, I had £20k in my Barclays account in cash and I indicated this on the form. At the time that they made the transfer, I had £10k in the account and it was invested in a fund. Apart from the amounts not matching, was Barclays allowed to sell my fund when I hadn't authorised this on the transfer form?

Why in heaven's name did you invest £10K in a fund in the middle of a transfer? The transfer would in any case have to have been for your total current year subscription, as partial transfers of current year's ISAs are no permitted. I am also quite certain that one of the transfer conditions you agreed to was that if AJ Bell couldn't do an in-specie transfer, your investment would be sold and the cash proceeds will be transferred.

I suspect there are a few other details that you haven't shared which would probably explain why Barclays don't want to re-open an investment ISA for you. If you still feel you have a valid case for complaints. you will have to first raise these with Barclays and with AJ Bell individually. Both have 8 weeks to respond to your complaints. If they don't respond in that timeframe, or don't respond to your satisfaction, you can then take your complaints to the FOS. TBH, though, with the information you have provided, it is not easy to see who is at fault, and I would expect that the two ISA providers have different versions of what happened.

I invested the £10K as I got tired of waiting for Barclays to resolve the transfer issue and on reflection I liked the look of some of Barclays' ready-made investments, so I decided to just cancel the transfer and stick with Barclays.

It definitely seems that they are both at fault but also they both seem to be slow and bad at helping with the complaints. So I'm hoping that the Ombudsman could look at the whole picture as it's very difficult pursuing these two complaints separately myself.

masonic said:

chrood said:

It is clear to me that Barclays and AJ Bell have both messed up and won't take responsibility so I think maybe I should escalate both complaints to the Ombudsman. Do you know if they are happy to look at two complaints with different banks together in situations like this? I don't know what will happen to the money that was sent to Barclays but I presume that either Barclays will reopen my ISA after all and put it there or send it back to AJ Bell again, surely I can't be at risk of this money being taken out of the ISA wrapper.

You would only need to escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman if one or both firms do not resolve the situation to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of the date of your formal complaint. Until you've given them 8 weeks, or the firm has given you a letter of deadlock, you can't escalate your complaint.

What is it you want to achieve? If you still want your S&S ISA at AJ Bell then it seems sensible to get them to take the money back from Barclays and open the S&S ISA as planned. Given Barclays won't reopen the S&S ISA then this seems the easiest solution.

chrood said:

The other thing I am wondering is whether or not Barclays was allowed to make this transfer. When I made the original request, I had £20k in my Barclays account in cash and I indicated this on the form. At the time that they made the transfer, I had £10k in the account and it was invested in a fund. Apart from the amounts not matching, was Barclays allowed to sell my fund when I hadn't authorised this on the transfer form?

It depends on the instruction on the transfer form. The AJ Bell's transfer form merely specifies "approximate transfer value", "this is a [full/partial] transfer", "please transfer my S&S ISA to AJ Bell Youinvest as [investments/cash/both]". If you ticked the full transfer box and the cash box, then Barclays would have authority to sell any investments you held. If there were investments held in the ISA then their value could fluctuate, so the approximate transfer value would be meaningless.

This has caused me a lot of stress and wasted my time so I do feel that some compensation is warranted from both banks in view of this. Also the sale of my investment was forced and I may end up missing out on gains from this. It looks as though I should be ok in terms of using my ISA allowance but it has caused a lot of worry that this may have been an issue, I have worked so hard to make sure that I had the money available to invest this tax year.

I requested a full transfer but I stated the value as £20k. Barclays would have been able to see that I invested £10k recently so I can't see how they could possibly think that this is approximately £20k. When I initially raised the matter with them, the customer services agent even mentioned that they could see that there was a discrepancy with the amount but the bank has not commented when I have suggested that perhaps the transfer shouldn't have been made for this reason. With both banks, I have made lots of points in my complaints and they don't respond to my messages in full which I find very frustrating and only gives me further cause for complaint if I escalate things with the ombudsman.

What I find insulting is that AJ Bell keeps saying that they've managed to secure me 3 free trade deals as compensation and asking if I want to accept them - these are worth between £1.50 and £9.95 each, for me they're not really worth anything as I buy ready-made funds which have no fee and they only cost £1.50 to sell if I ever wish to do so. It seems clear to me that they're hoping I'll think this is an amazing offer and accept it so that they can close the complaint.

masonic

chrood said:

masonic said:

chrood said:

It is clear to me that Barclays and AJ Bell have both messed up and won't take responsibility so I think maybe I should escalate both complaints to the Ombudsman. Do you know if they are happy to look at two complaints with different banks together in situations like this? I don't know what will happen to the money that was sent to Barclays but I presume that either Barclays will reopen my ISA after all and put it there or send it back to AJ Bell again, surely I can't be at risk of this money being taken out of the ISA wrapper.

You would only need to escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman if one or both firms do not resolve the situation to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of the date of your formal complaint. Until you've given them 8 weeks, or the firm has given you a letter of deadlock, you can't escalate your complaint.

What is it you want to achieve? If you still want your S&S ISA at AJ Bell then it seems sensible to get them to take the money back from Barclays and open the S&S ISA as planned. Given Barclays won't reopen the S&S ISA then this seems the easiest solution.

chrood said:

The other thing I am wondering is whether or not Barclays was allowed to make this transfer. When I made the original request, I had £20k in my Barclays account in cash and I indicated this on the form. At the time that they made the transfer, I had £10k in the account and it was invested in a fund. Apart from the amounts not matching, was Barclays allowed to sell my fund when I hadn't authorised this on the transfer form?

It depends on the instruction on the transfer form. The AJ Bell's transfer form merely specifies "approximate transfer value", "this is a [full/partial] transfer", "please transfer my S&S ISA to AJ Bell Youinvest as [investments/cash/both]". If you ticked the full transfer box and the cash box, then Barclays would have authority to sell any investments you held. If there were investments held in the ISA then their value could fluctuate, so the approximate transfer value would be meaningless.

This has caused me a lot of stress and wasted my time so I do feel that some compensation is warranted from both banks in view of this. Also the sale of my investment was forced and I may end up missing out on gains from this. It looks as though I should be ok in terms of using my ISA allowance but it has caused a lot of worry that this may have been an issue, I have worked so hard to make sure that I had the money available to invest this tax year.

I requested a full transfer but I stated the value as £20k. Barclays would have been able to see that I invested £10k recently so I can't see how they could possibly think that this is approximately £20k. When I initially raised the matter with them, the customer services agent even mentioned that they could see that there was a discrepancy with the amount but the bank has not commented when I have suggested that perhaps the transfer shouldn't have been made for this reason. With both banks, I have made lots of points in my complaints and they don't respond to my messages in full which I find very frustrating and only gives me further cause for complaint if I escalate things with the ombudsman.

What I find insulting is that AJ Bell keeps saying that they've managed to secure me 3 free trade deals as compensation and asking if I want to accept them - these are worth between £1.50 and £9.95 each, for me they're not really worth anything as I buy ready-made funds which have no fee and they only cost £1.50 to sell if I ever wish to do so. It seems clear to me that they're hoping I'll think this is an amazing offer and accept it so that they can close the complaint.

ISA Managers are under no obligation to perform a forensic examination of your transactions to determine whether or not you've got cold feet during a transfer, so suggesting Barclays is at fault because your ISA had recent transactions and/or held investments is completely irrational and a non-starter. Although it's ill-advised, people do transact on their ISAs while awaiting transfers to complete and that is no indication that they no longer want the transfer to proceed. Barclays was right to act on the transfer authority provided by you via AJ Bell. It is not clear that anything other than you getting in touch with Barclays directly could have rescinded the transfer instruction you made.

As far as I can see, Barclays misinformed you when they told you that you'd oversubscribed to the ISA, and AJ Bell misinformed you regarding how to cancel the transfer. Reading between the lines, actions you have taken have contributed to the situation you now find yourself in, so the blame can be apportioned between all parties concerned.

Regarding your complaint and objectives, you've still not stated whether or not you wish your ISA to end up at AJ Bell as you originally instructed. This is a key decision you need to make. Barclays apparently no longer want you as a S&S ISA customer, which is their right, however they do need to help you move your ISA elsewhere if that's their decision and they are currently holding your S&S ISA money.

Compensation is not an unreasonable expectation in this situation. It would be determined by demonstrable financial loss (there is none, unless you end up losing ISA status on the £10k being transferred back and forth), and for non-financial losses such as trouble and upset.

It seems AJ Bell has given you a low-ball offer, and you've complained about their responses to your communications. Have you made it clear you are making a formal complaint in accordance with their complaints process, and have they acknowledged this? It does seem like you are still dealing with front-line customer service who will have authority to give away trading credits and not much else.

You mention that you've made lots of points in your complaints, which is not usually a good thing. It's taken quite a few posts to get something resembling a coherent picture in this thread, which is understandable if you are upset. It would be best to draft a clear and simple letter of complaint outlining in brief what happened and then specifying what you want as a resolution. You could try outlining it here first if you like. Your previous posts have been very difficult to follow, so a complaint written in the same manner is not going to be very effective.

One thing you should be clear on is that the Financial Ombudsman Service will not seek to punish a firm for each technical breach or point of inconvenience, they will look at the overall outcome and impact of the whole experience.

chrood

masonic said:

chrood said:

masonic said:

chrood said:

It is clear to me that Barclays and AJ Bell have both messed up and won't take responsibility so I think maybe I should escalate both complaints to the Ombudsman. Do you know if they are happy to look at two complaints with different banks together in situations like this? I don't know what will happen to the money that was sent to Barclays but I presume that either Barclays will reopen my ISA after all and put it there or send it back to AJ Bell again, surely I can't be at risk of this money being taken out of the ISA wrapper.

You would only need to escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman if one or both firms do not resolve the situation to your satisfaction within 8 weeks of the date of your formal complaint. Until you've given them 8 weeks, or the firm has given you a letter of deadlock, you can't escalate your complaint.

What is it you want to achieve? If you still want your S&S ISA at AJ Bell then it seems sensible to get them to take the money back from Barclays and open the S&S ISA as planned. Given Barclays won't reopen the S&S ISA then this seems the easiest solution.

chrood said:

The other thing I am wondering is whether or not Barclays was allowed to make this transfer. When I made the original request, I had £20k in my Barclays account in cash and I indicated this on the form. At the time that they made the transfer, I had £10k in the account and it was invested in a fund. Apart from the amounts not matching, was Barclays allowed to sell my fund when I hadn't authorised this on the transfer form?

It depends on the instruction on the transfer form. The AJ Bell's transfer form merely specifies "approximate transfer value", "this is a [full/partial] transfer", "please transfer my S&S ISA to AJ Bell Youinvest as [investments/cash/both]". If you ticked the full transfer box and the cash box, then Barclays would have authority to sell any investments you held. If there were investments held in the ISA then their value could fluctuate, so the approximate transfer value would be meaningless.

This has caused me a lot of stress and wasted my time so I do feel that some compensation is warranted from both banks in view of this. Also the sale of my investment was forced and I may end up missing out on gains from this. It looks as though I should be ok in terms of using my ISA allowance but it has caused a lot of worry that this may have been an issue, I have worked so hard to make sure that I had the money available to invest this tax year.

I requested a full transfer but I stated the value as £20k. Barclays would have been able to see that I invested £10k recently so I can't see how they could possibly think that this is approximately £20k. When I initially raised the matter with them, the customer services agent even mentioned that they could see that there was a discrepancy with the amount but the bank has not commented when I have suggested that perhaps the transfer shouldn't have been made for this reason. With both banks, I have made lots of points in my complaints and they don't respond to my messages in full which I find very frustrating and only gives me further cause for complaint if I escalate things with the ombudsman.

What I find insulting is that AJ Bell keeps saying that they've managed to secure me 3 free trade deals as compensation and asking if I want to accept them - these are worth between £1.50 and £9.95 each, for me they're not really worth anything as I buy ready-made funds which have no fee and they only cost £1.50 to sell if I ever wish to do so. It seems clear to me that they're hoping I'll think this is an amazing offer and accept it so that they can close the complaint.

ISA Managers are under no obligation to perform a forensic examination of your transactions to determine whether or not you've got cold feet during a transfer, so suggesting Barclays is at fault because your ISA had recent transactions and/or held investments is completely irrational and a non-starter. Although it's ill-advised, people do transact on their ISAs while awaiting transfers to complete and that is no indication that they no longer want the transfer to proceed. Barclays was right to act on the transfer authority provided by you via AJ Bell. It is not clear that anything other than you getting in touch with Barclays directly could have rescinded the transfer instruction you made.

As far as I can see, Barclays misinformed you when they told you that you'd oversubscribed to the ISA, and AJ Bell misinformed you regarding how to cancel the transfer. Reading between the lines, actions you have taken have contributed to the situation you now find yourself in, so the blame can be apportioned between all parties concerned.

Regarding your complaint and objectives, you've still not stated whether or not you wish your ISA to end up at AJ Bell as you originally instructed. This is a key decision you need to make. Barclays apparently no longer want you as a S&S ISA customer, which is their right, however they do need to help you move your ISA elsewhere if that's their decision and they are currently holding your S&S ISA money.

Compensation is not an unreasonable expectation in this situation. It would be determined by demonstrable financial loss (there is none, unless you end up losing ISA status on the £10k being transferred back and forth), and for non-financial losses such as trouble and upset.

It seems AJ Bell has given you a low-ball offer, and you've complained about their responses to your communications. Have you made it clear you are making a formal complaint in accordance with their complaints process, and have they acknowledged this? It does seem like you are still dealing with front-line customer service who will have authority to give away trading credits and not much else.

You mention that you've made lots of points in your complaints, which is not usually a good thing. It's taken quite a few posts to get something resembling a coherent picture in this thread, which is understandable if you are upset. It would be best to draft a clear and simple letter of complaint outlining in brief what happened and then specifying what you want as a resolution. You could try outlining it here first if you like. Your previous posts have been very difficult to follow, so a complaint written in the same manner is not going to be very effective.

One thing you should be clear on is that the Financial Ombudsman Service will not seek to punish a firm for each technical breach or point of inconvenience, they will look at the overall outcome and impact of the whole experience.

Many thanks for your detailed answer. I suppose I blame Barclays because of the problem making the transfer in the first place and if that hadn't been an issue, I wouldn't have ended up in this mess.

I'm happy for my funds to end up with either provider to be honest. I'm planning to invest £20k per year for the forseeable future and will probably end up with a mixture of funds with these two providers plus others.

I wonder how anyone could attribute a specific financial loss to missing out on having £10k in the ISA wrapper. Potentially it could end up being more thant the £10k in the long-run but who knows. I presume that it shouldn't be an issue about the funds going back and forth though and I don't see how I could be to blame for this happening. This is why I was wondering if HMRC can step in if money ends up not being in the ISA wrapped because of banks messing things up.

I'll look into that. The person who has offered me the compensation is a senior member of the transfer team.

Thanks for the kind offer to look at my letter of complaint. In these situations I do find that there are a lot of points to make and I find it hard to be more concise whilst still trying to say what I want to.

Yeah I suppose it's fair enough to understand that mistakes happen, it's just unfortunate that both banks have made at least one mistake in this case.

masonic

chrood said:

I wonder how anyone could attribute a specific financial loss to missing out on having £10k in the ISA wrapper. Potentially it could end up being more thant the £10k in the long-run but who knows. I presume that it shouldn't be an issue about the funds going back and forth though and I don't see how I could be to blame for this happening. This is why I was wondering if HMRC can step in if money ends up not being in the ISA wrapped because of banks messing things up.

To come up with a financial loss in that situation, one would have to look at your life expectancy, average investment growth, and work out a figure for capital gain and CGT you might have to pay if the money was invested for the long term and then sold in your twilight years. One would probably exclude the CGT allowance, which could be needed for other disposals, and current rates would have to be assumed. Though it's highly unlikely that it will come to that.

It's taking HMRC years to intervene in cases where people have made ISA blunders like exceeding the subscription limit or paying into more than one ISA of the same type, so I don't think they will be of much help. Either Barclays needs to put an ISA wrapper back around the cash, or they need to send it back to AJ Bell. Once that is done then you can negotiate a suitable good will payment from each of them for the hassle.

chrood

masonic said:

chrood said:

I wonder how anyone could attribute a specific financial loss to missing out on having £10k in the ISA wrapper. Potentially it could end up being more thant the £10k in the long-run but who knows. I presume that it shouldn't be an issue about the funds going back and forth though and I don't see how I could be to blame for this happening. This is why I was wondering if HMRC can step in if money ends up not being in the ISA wrapped because of banks messing things up.

To come up with a financial loss in that situation, one would have to look at your life expectancy, average investment growth, and work out a figure for capital gain and CGT you might have to pay if the money was invested for the long term and then sold in your twilight years. One would probably exclude the CGT allowance, which could be needed for other disposals, and current rates would have to be assumed. Though it's highly unlikely that it will come to that.

It's taking HMRC years to intervene in cases where people have made ISA blunders like exceeding the subscription limit or paying into more than one ISA of the same type, so I don't think they will be of much help. Either Barclays needs to put an ISA wrapper back around the cash, or they need to send it back to AJ Bell. Once that is done then you can negotiate a suitable good will payment from each of them for the hassle.

Yeah, I'll have a think about what that expected loss would be. I'll get onto Barclays about my money once we're at the end of this annoyingly timed Easter weekend.