Cash ISA - transferred too much to new account !

dbrookf

What will happen - did this yesterday - forgot about the £20k limit!

masonic

Your ISA provider should return the excess or the whole amount. They are not allowed to accept subscriptions of more than £20k per tax year... unless you have other types of ISA and only exceeded the allowance once those are taken into account.

sheslookinhot

masonic said:

Your ISA provider should return the excess or the whole amount. They are not allowed to accept subscriptions of more than £20k per tax year... unless you have other types of ISA and only exceeded the allowance once those are taken into account.

Does the 20k not apply to new money and so transfer amounts are unrestricted ?

ColdIron

I suspect, but do not know, that the OP used the term transfer rather loosely and meant moving cash from a non-ISA account to the ISA

But it's a good point, if indeed it was an ISA to ISA transfer then the £20,000 subscription limit would not apply

masonic

sheslookinhot said:

masonic said:

Your ISA provider should return the excess or the whole amount. They are not allowed to accept subscriptions of more than £20k per tax year... unless you have other types of ISA and only exceeded the allowance once those are taken into account.

Does the 20k not apply to new money and so transfer amounts are unrestricted ?

The £20k limit applies to all money transferred in by the individual, whether or not it came from an ISA. Self-transfers between cash ISAs can be valid in some circumstances, but the receiving provider will not accept more than £20k. The only way to transfer between ISAs without affecting the annual allowance is to ask the new provider to arrange a transfer directly from the old provider. Unlikely any money would be sent on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend.

dbrookf

Thanks everyone for your clarification! It was indeed new money and not transferred from an old ISA. I look forward to receiving the money back pronto!

Albermarle

dbrookf said:

Thanks everyone for your clarification! It was indeed new money and not transferred from an old ISA. I look forward to receiving the money back pronto!

There is a sub forum just about ISA's. Could be worth reading through as a good way of getting up to speed with all the different ISA rules.
ISAs & tax-free savings — MoneySavingExpert Forum

steveksullivan

@dbrookf I might suggest you get in touch with the provider unless it was blindingly obvious what you have done and ask them to return the funds.

When I did it (by accident, and only by a couple of 000s ), it took the provider 8 months to realise !

Admittedly, my mistake was across 2 ISAs although both with the same provider ( I forgot that when funding the first ISA which I remembered as being just previous years transfers, I had in fact added a couple of 000s cash ...... several months later I opened a new ISA and funded with the full annual allowance)

If yours is all in one ISA it should be more obvious to the provider . .....

Slinky

I sent £1000 too much over by mistake and transferred it back myself the same day. Also by mistake having put the full £20K into a cash ISA I forgot about a stocks and shares ISA I've been paying into for years. A couple of payments went into the S&S ISA before I remembered, and stopped the payments. So far nobody has noticed. My IFA says it's unlikely anything will happen and it will just slip under the radar.