Transfer a cash Lifetime ISA (LISA) to stocks and shares LISA?

eskbanker

wear_galoshes said:

I now got a further response from AJ Bell, who had repeated back to me before that it is an HMRC rule that over 40s cannot open an account, and then I sent them the link to the page that eskbanker kindly provided above. This is what they say:

"Unfortunately we are unable to accept applications from customers who are over 40 as we are not able to differentiate between requests for transfers and new LISA accounts. We are currently looking at ways round the issue but at the moment we do not have a timescale for this."

This does sound like simply a software issue - but if they are claiming to be 'currently looking at ways round the issue' then presumably the FOS won't be able to help much either...

I wouldn't pay much attention to their claim that they're looking at ways round this, as they've been pretending to address this for three and a half years!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/74299698#Comment_74299698

wear_galoshes

Presumably this will slowly become more of an issue as more LISA holders pass the 40 age threshold, and as house prices continue to rise without the £450k threshold changing...  How can you predict when you open the LISA the price you are going to end up paying for your first house...?

At the moment I just feel pretty peeved that I was just following Money Saving Expert advice a few years back to jump in and open a LISA before I turned 40 - only to find now that even though the government rules allow me to transfer it to a stocks and shares LISA to make it something still worth having for my retirement, no provider will actually let me do this...!

masonic

wear_galoshes said:

Presumably this will slowly become more of an issue as more LISA holders pass the 40 age threshold, and as house prices continue to rise without the £450k threshold changing...  How can you predict when you open the LISA the price you are going to end up paying for your first house...?

At the moment I just feel pretty peeved that I was just following Money Saving Expert advice a few years back to jump in and open a LISA before I turned 40 - only to find now that even though the government rules allow me to transfer it to a stocks and shares LISA to make it something still worth having for my retirement, no provider will actually let me do this...!

It's not just people who have been saving for a house purchase and found themselves over the limit that use a LISA for retirement. It is useful to run alongside a conventional pension allowing you to take a slice of pension income net of NI but not subject to income tax.

A complaint acknowledging their admission of a system problem and asserting that it would be reasonable for them to apply a manual workaround might work wonders.

wear_galoshes

Yes, mine is not the only situation where a transfer would make sense.

I have written to AJ Bell explaining that I am now lodging a 'complaint' and that I intend to follow up with the Financial Ombudsman. I will see what happens.

Kerry01

Transact have completed a cash LISA transfer (from Skipton BS) for someone over 40 to their S&S LISA. However, it was completed using an IFA.

xyz123

Kerry01 said:

Transact have completed a cash LISA transfer (from Skipton BS) for someone over 40 to their S&S LISA. However, it was completed using an IFA.

Hi, I know this post was a long time ago but do you or anyone else know off any IFA that helped with this situation. I am in exactly the same situation where I am stuck with cash LISA. 

eskbanker

xyz123 said:

Kerry01 said:

Transact have completed a cash LISA transfer (from Skipton BS) for someone over 40 to their S&S LISA. However, it was completed using an IFA.

Hi, I know this post was a long time ago but do you or anyone else know off any IFA that helped with this situation. I am in exactly the same situation where I am stuck with cash LISA. 

I don't think there was any suggestion that this could only be handled by a subset of IFAs, although presumably it's easier to do this as part of a much wider portfolio of financial management, rather than someone with a few grand hoping to get IFA assistance for a small one-off transaction, which is perhaps unlikely to be cost-effective for either party.