New ISA rules clarification on multiple accounts

Kim_13

Kaizen917 said:

ColdIron said:

It's stale information. Don't forget the changes were only announced in the Spring Budget, just over a month ago

I would still consider them slow to act because it was actually announced in the autumn budget last year.

Had they taken the time over the Winter to add a note saying that from 6th April 2024, payments into multiple ISAs of one type were permitted, you can guarantee that there would be certain investors who only read the change and not the date and then complain to the provider if HMRC alerted them to their breach of the rules. They could have prepped it to go live yesterday, but no doubt some staffers would accidentally put it online early.

I hadn’t realised that providers were free to stipulate that you could only pay into one ISA with them per tax year (fixes of different lengths being the obvious use case.) Coventry BS have been the one I’ve come across so far, though Skipton still have odd terms about transferring the current year in full, for a provider that would seem to allow you to have an EA + fix or multiple fixes with your 20K. 

Lucky I came across @badger09 ‘s post, as I was planning to just do as I pleased knowing that I would be in the right as far as HMRC were concerned.

friolento

Malchester said:

I spoke to a Lloyds Bank agent last week who checked with their ISA team and said that I could, if I wanted, open two or more cash ISAs. Their website says you can't and their verdict is you cannot. They are not allowing anyone to open more than one cash ISA each year

Lloyds might not allow more than one of their own cash ISAs each year but they cannot stop you from having any number of active cash ISAs with other providers in the same year.

If you want more than one with a single provider, Zopa is probably your easiest choice as they allow you to have ISA pots, with any mixture of easy access and fixed ISAs. I think you can have up to 40 with them if this tickles your fancy. The Zopa rates are also much better than Lloyds'.

EthicsGradient

Kim_13 said:

Kaizen917 said:

ColdIron said:

It's stale information. Don't forget the changes were only announced in the Spring Budget, just over a month ago

I would still consider them slow to act because it was actually announced in the autumn budget last year.

I hadn’t realised that providers were free to stipulate that you could only pay into one ISA with them per tax year (fixes of different lengths being the obvious use case.) 

Providers are allowed to restrict the use of their own products in pretty much any way they want, as long as it's not discriminatory. SmartSave, for instance, say you can have only one savings account, of any type at all, with them at one time. 

Malchester

friolenyesto said:

Malchester said:

I spoke to a Lloyds Bank agent last week who checked with their ISA team and said that I could, if I wanted, open two or more cash ISAs. Their website says you can't and their verdict is you cannot. They are not allowing anyone to open more than one cash ISA each year

Lloyds might not allow more than one of their own cash ISAs each year but they cannot stop you from having any number of active cash ISAs with other providers in the same year.

If you want more than one with a single provider, Zopa is probably your easiest choice as they allow you to have ISA pots, with any mixture of easy access and fixed ISAs. I think you can have up to 40 with them if this tickles your fancy. The Zopa rates are also much better than Lloyds'.

Yes but transfers out of Zopa have to include the whole ISA. You cannot transfer an easy access pot out and leave a fixed pot. If you want to transfer Easy access have to pay penalty to move any fixed rate ISA or leave all pots to the end of the longest term pot

RG2015

I have two flexible easy access cash ISAs with Zopa and Virgin Money with balances of £x and £y as at 5 April 2024.

The ISA rules allow me to freely move money in and out of these two accounts as long as the respective balances never exceed £x and £y during 2024/2025.

I have also just funded a fixed term ISA today with £1.

The new ISA rules allow me to subscribe any amounts up to a total of £19,999 to any cash ISAs in 2024/2025. This includes the two flexible ISAs that I had at the end of 2023/2024.

I do however need to keep my own records of how much additional money I subscribe to each of last year's ISAs, along with any interest credited during the current tax year.

This is going to get a little bit more complicted this year!

kiloton

@Malchester Good to know about the ISA pots all being combined and not individual. I was going to have some money in their variable in case interest rates stayed same or better. Now knowing that, if another provider was supplying better interest, I would possibly have to transfer out the fixed, incurring fee/interest payment, is a bit of a deal breaker. I may look for similar variable ISA with another bank.

I did have multiple Halifax ISAs last tax year because they run Portfolios. Each ISA had its own account number and roll/ref number so can be transferred individually, not all at once. I thought it would be same with Zopa and Pots but this is a really good insight into the differences in way the banks handle portfolios/pots!

Malchester

kiloton said:

@Malchester Good to know about the ISA pots all being combined and not individual. I was going to have some money in their variable in case interest rates stayed same or better. Now knowing that, if another provider was supplying better interest, I would possibly have to transfer out the fixed, incurring fee/interest payment, is a bit of a deal breaker. I may look for similar variable ISA with another bank.

I did have multiple Halifax ISAs last tax year because they run Portfolios. Each ISA had its own account number and roll/ref number so can be transferred individually, not all at once. I thought it would be same with Zopa and Pots but this is a really good insight into the differences in way the banks handle portfolios/pots!

Yes, I agree. Have 3 ISAs with Aldermore, all individual and can be transferred individually

friolento

Malchester said:

friolenyesto said:

Malchester said:

I spoke to a Lloyds Bank agent last week who checked with their ISA team and said that I could, if I wanted, open two or more cash ISAs. Their website says you can't and their verdict is you cannot. They are not allowing anyone to open more than one cash ISA each year

Lloyds might not allow more than one of their own cash ISAs each year but they cannot stop you from having any number of active cash ISAs with other providers in the same year.

If you want more than one with a single provider, Zopa is probably your easiest choice as they allow you to have ISA pots, with any mixture of easy access and fixed ISAs. I think you can have up to 40 with them if this tickles your fancy. The Zopa rates are also much better than Lloyds'.

Yes but transfers out of Zopa have to include the whole ISA. You cannot transfer an easy access pot out and leave a fixed pot. If you want to transfer Easy access have to pay penalty to move any fixed rate ISA or leave all pots to the end of the longest term pot

That's not how I understand it. You can withdraw from the easy access ISA(s) as much or as little as you want, any time you want, whether you have a fixed term ISA or not.

The fixed term one is completely separate, and there will of course be a penalty if you withdraw it before maturity. That's the same at all providers.

kiloton

Well here is a spanner in the works. Current transfer of one Nationwide ISA is working. Completion hopefully by 26th April!!!! In Zopa you cannot have concurrent ISA transfers running, so I cannot transfer the other at the same time. Pretty annoyed at this. So if I did want to moved Access ISA money from that pot to the Fixed Rate, I will have run out of time because it would be another 15 working days for the rest of my money to be transferred. 

Having Googled it I can see it states that this the way it works for Zopa, but I wish there was an alert during the process so I could catch myself on and rethink things. My ISA with the most money is now earning a terrible interest rate until I can conduct the transfer 

Malchester

friolento said:

Malchester said:

friolenyesto said:

Malchester said:

I spoke to a Lloyds Bank agent last week who checked with their ISA team and said that I could, if I wanted, open two or more cash ISAs. Their website says you can't and their verdict is you cannot. They are not allowing anyone to open more than one cash ISA each year

Lloyds might not allow more than one of their own cash ISAs each year but they cannot stop you from having any number of active cash ISAs with other providers in the same year.

If you want more than one with a single provider, Zopa is probably your easiest choice as they allow you to have ISA pots, with any mixture of easy access and fixed ISAs. I think you can have up to 40 with them if this tickles your fancy. The Zopa rates are also much better than Lloyds'.

Yes but transfers out of Zopa have to include the whole ISA. You cannot transfer an easy access pot out and leave a fixed pot. If you want to transfer Easy access have to pay penalty to move any fixed rate ISA or leave all pots to the end of the longest term pot

That's not how I understand it. You can withdraw from the easy access ISA(s) as much or as little as you want, any time you want, whether you have a fixed term ISA or not.

The fixed term one is completely separate, and there will of course be a penalty if you withdraw it before maturity. That's the same at all providers.

You are correct about withdrawing. I was talking about transferring the ISA elsewhere as an ISA, not withdrawing funds to an account outside an ISA wrapper. You cannot transfer the easy access ISA elsewhere without including the fixed rate part of the transfer