Very old Santander ISA

katies_mum

Hi, wonder if anyone can help with a little advice please

I found out today my dad of 86 has had an ISA with Santander for over 20`odd years, of course this is paying him 0.01%  He doesn`t have any other savings but still wants to keep his £10,300 in an ISA.  As this account was opened in a branch many years ago please might anyone know if he would be able to open a new ISA on line with a different organisation and do an ISA transfer by giving them the account number and details of the account (apart a few pence of interest going in to this account each year it hasn`t been used since he opened it) or might it be more complicated due to it being such an old account

Any advice would be very much appreciated, thank you

masonic

It shouldn't make any difference how old the account is providing it hasn't been classified as a dormant account by the bank (he would have been warned if this was going to happen).

katies_mum

Thank you, he had his last couple of statements but no letters mentioning the account was classified as dormant.  I`m just gutted I didn`t now about this years ago to hep him get it moved.

TojoRalph

Regards Santander and dormant accounts. I received a letter in April advising an ISA I have was to become dormant on a date 3 years and 10 months from the last transaction. I called them and passed security and they were adamant that unless I withdrew monies or added monies, the account would become dormant. It was then explained that once dormant I would have to go into a branch to remove the dormancy. Needless to say I transferred all ISA monies from Santander.

katies_mum

Thanks, my dad hasn`t had any correspondence from Santander apart from annual statements.  He needs to get the money moved asap, but apart from his driving licence doesn`t have any other ID so assuming this might cause a few problems 

xylophone

He can apply on line to transfer the ISA.

Perhaps the one year fix from Oaknorth might suit?

https://www.oaknorth.co.uk/personal-savings/personal-fixed-rate-cash-isa/#overview

katies_mum

Thank you xylophone will take a look 

refluxer

It might be worth asking if he really needs to preserve the tax-free status of his interest ?

As it sounds like he won't be earning anywhere near the £1000 Personal Savings Allowance (or £500 if he's a higher-rate tax payer), he'll get a better interest rate (if he doesn't mind locking his money away) from a fixed-rate cash savings account at the moment. The best 1-year fixed-rate savings account is currently paying 1.01% compared to 0.72% for the equivalent ISA, for example. Granted the sums we're talking aren't huge, but every little helps !

If he wants easy access to his money at any time though (which would be understandable if it makes up the bulk of his savings) then the best rates for each are currently identical (0.5%) so less reason to come out of the ISA, I guess.

katies_mum

Thank you, if not an ISA I had thought about a Marcus account for him.  We have Marcus accounts and they are so easy to operate