Can I take money out and put it back into a Santander Cash ISA?

FatherTireseus

TheLondoner said:

refluxer said:

TheLondoner said:

Another thought crossed my mind. What about if I put it all into a stocks and shares isa? or IFISA? Main question I have is whether i've lost that allowance altogether, or just lost it with Santander. 

The £20k ISA allowance applies across all providers and all different types of ISA so if you've put £20k in a Cash ISA with Santander, then there will be nothing left from your allowance to put into a Cash ISA with a different provider or an ISA of a different type (eg. a Stocks & Shares ISA) during the current tax year.

Hopefully Santander can rectify their mistake though. 

I meant that if £20k is out, then is that £20k allowance available in another type of isa that i've not subscribed to this year (stocks or ifisa). Either way, hopefully Santander allow me to deposit the funds back!

Unfortunately,  as refluxer said, once you've used your ISA allowance, that's it until the next tax year. 

My understanding is that you can put £20k of new money into ISAs each year (cash, stocks and shares, IFISAs or a mix of all three but only with one provider in each category).  And once you've used that £20k, you can't save / invest any more, even if you've subsequently withdrawn the money.  The only exception would be if you were able to replace funds withdrawn from a flexible ISA, and replace them into the same product. 

But as you've established your ISA isn't the flexible type, I fear your only hope is if Santander uphold your complaint and let you put the money back.  

TheLondoner

FatherTireseus said:

TheLondoner said:

refluxer said:

TheLondoner said:

Another thought crossed my mind. What about if I put it all into a stocks and shares isa? or IFISA? Main question I have is whether i've lost that allowance altogether, or just lost it with Santander. 

The £20k ISA allowance applies across all providers and all different types of ISA so if you've put £20k in a Cash ISA with Santander, then there will be nothing left from your allowance to put into a Cash ISA with a different provider or an ISA of a different type (eg. a Stocks & Shares ISA) during the current tax year.

Hopefully Santander can rectify their mistake though. 

I meant that if £20k is out, then is that £20k allowance available in another type of isa that i've not subscribed to this year (stocks or ifisa). Either way, hopefully Santander allow me to deposit the funds back!

Unfortunately,  as refluxer said, once you've used your ISA allowance, that's it until the next tax year. 

My understanding is that you can put £20k of new money into ISAs each year (cash, stocks and shares, IFISAs or a mix of all three but only with one provider in each category).  And once you've used that £20k, you can't save / invest any more, even if you've subsequently withdrawn the money.  The only exception would be if you were able to replace funds withdrawn from a flexible ISA, and replace them into the same product. 

But as you've established your ISA isn't the flexible type, I fear your only hope is if Santander uphold your complaint and let you put the money back.  

Thanks for your reply. I had a call from santander today. They acknowledged I was misinformed by the customer service representative last week (after complaints listened to the call recording) and they are going to try to let me put my money back so I don't lose the ISA allowance for this year. No guarantees it'll work but I very well hope they can do this!

Moral of the story - never trust the bank - always double check with the T&Cs on the bank's website/MSE!

eskbanker

TheLondoner said:
Moral of the story - never trust the bank - always double check with the T&Cs on the bank's website/MSE!

Moral of the story is that it's the published Ts & Cs that should always be the first (and generally only) port of call.

Bank staff are human beings who make mistakes (especially the underpaid and underinformed front-line customer service types, even though they obviously should know where to source the correct info too) and MSE is no more than "a journalistic website and aim to provide the best MoneySaving guides, tips, tools and techniques, but can't guarantee to be perfect, so do note you use the information at your own risk and we can't accept liability if things go wrong"....

TheLondoner

Oh I forgot to update everyone here. Santander reviewed the phone records and agreed they had misinformed me. They allowed me to put my money back into my Santander ISA, after which I transferred it to Virgin Money, which is a flexible ISA.