Dodgy sounding Nutmeg letter

BoyJohn811

Hi all, I have an ISA account with Nutmeg and have received an email, which had the following statement: 'We’re writing to let you know that under HMRC rules, if you do not contribute to your ISA within a tax year, your ISA will lapse. This means an ISA will not be automatically opened for you in the next tax year. If you do not make any contributions to your 2021/22 ISA this tax year, we will not automatically open a 2022/23 ISA for you on 6th April.'

As I understand, I do not need to always contribute to an ISA account, I can just open one, contribute once and leave it for 10 years and it will still be an ISA. However, the wording of this email confused me a bit. In the years 2021/22 I contributed to a different ISA provider not Nutmeg, so I made use of my allowance. Not sure what they mean by 'we will not automatically open a 2022/23 ISA for you'. I already have one with them from way before, I assume that will always be an ISA and I can choose to contribute to it in 2022/23 as well (or in any other year, provided I contribute to one company at any given tax year)?

To me it just sounded they really want me to add more money.

Thank you.

eskbanker

Clumsy wording perhaps, especially the implication that ISAs are associated with individual years, but it is true that if a year is missed, an existing ISA would need to be reactivated in order to make further contributions in future years - many ISA providers will send such notifications at this time of year.

dunstonh

Sounds poorly written but is technically correct.  However, for most providers, it isn't an issue in the slightest as they just issue a new document in the next year you do eventually make a contribution in.

You can ignore it.

Albermarle

We’re writing to let you know that under HMRC rules, if you do not contribute to your ISA within a tax year, your ISA will lapse

It is nothing to do with Nutmeg trying to get you to invest more , they are just following the rules.

All it means is that if you do not contribute to an existing ISA at all in one tax year, then if you want to contribute the next tax year, the ISA will need to be reactivated . I think you just need to fill in a few details online to do this.

BoyJohn811

Thank you all for the clarification.

jimjames

I can understand the concern with the letter, more for the word "lapse" than feeling required to add more money. Lapse implies to me that the account will somehow be unavailable to use or on the road to closure which wouldn't appear to be the case with a S&S ISA. Poor wording I think.