Dealing with old ISAs 11 October 2021 at 1:16PM in ISAs & tax-free savings 1 reply 92 views

jfefleming

Hi there

I'm in the process of rationalising some old accounts.

I currently have a help to buy ISA, to which I deposit regularly.

I also have several old cash ISAs. Ideally, I'd like to combine those into one new cash ISA. However, as the Help to Buy is also a cash ISA, I know I can't pay into a second cash ISA. So I have two questions.

1) is it possible to transfer old cash ISAs into a new cash ISA without paying more money into the pot, in the same year that I had added money to another (help to buy) cash ISA pot? I know most places will have a minimum deposit, but could a transfer in cover that?

2) I know you can pay in to both a lifetime ISA and a normal cash ISA. If I were to transfer the help to buy to a lifetime ISA, would I then be able to open a new cash ISA this year, or would I have to wait until the next financial year to do that?

Thanks

masonic

Yes you can transfer your old ISAs without contributing. In the vast majority of cases a transfer will be accepted without the need to deposit new money.

You can only transfer a maximum of £4k per tax year into a LISA (minus any new money you pay into the LISA), so unless your HTB ISA balance is below this you would not be able to transfer all of it at once. If you transfer all of your current year subscriptions from a HTB ISA to a LISA, then you would be free to contribute to another cash ISA before the end of the tax year, subject to the overall annual allowance.