ISA big screw-up?

Frosty_Jack

ISA maturity approaching with lower interest, and mistakenly (been a tiring day) transferred ISA to a savings account in same bank. Immediately opened a new ISA with same bank and transferred money to it from new savings account. Don't tell me, it should of gone to original ISA? Have I lost my years and years of tax free interest now?

Frosty_Jack

By the way both the isa's are flexible.

Hal17

I'm no expert, but can you not just transfer the money back to your original flexible ISA. Then you can start again with a transfer to a higher interest rate ISA. 

Frosty_Jack

Hal17 said:

I'm no expert, but can you not just transfer the money back to your original flexible ISA. Then you can start again with a transfer to a higher interest rate ISA. 

I expect I can. But the issue is: have I lost all the years of accrued ISA contributions, by switching to a savings account?

Frosty_Jack

And more importantly transferring to a different ISA.

eskbanker

Frosty_Jack said:

Hal17 said:

I'm no expert, but can you not just transfer the money back to your original flexible ISA. Then you can start again with a transfer to a higher interest rate ISA. 

I expect I can. But the issue is: have I lost all the years of accrued ISA contributions, by switching to a savings account?

Frosty_Jack said:

And more importantly transferring to a different ISA.

If you withdraw the money from the new ISA to your savings account and then back to the original ISA then everything is preserved, as long as you do so by the end of this tax year, as this is the benefit of flexible ISAs.  Once you've done that, you can then arrange a transfer into whichever ISA you want the money to end up in, but make sure that you use the new provider's ISA transfer process rather than trying to do it yourself.

Frosty_Jack

singhini said:

Oh dear!
Based on your first 2 posts, i would say yes the money should have gone back to the original ISA (it sounds like its a flexi ISA and so, you have taken the money out and your instantly putting it back in).

However it sounds like you didn't do that. You took all the money out of the ISA and put it into a regular savings account (so now the money sits outside any ISA wrapper).

And you have now put the money into a "new" ISA from a savings account and i would think you can only put max £20k into this new ISA (assuming you haven't used up this years allowance already).

I would speak to the bank ASAP and see if there is any "cooling off period" and if there is, try to get the money put back from the new ISA back into the savings account and then from the savings account back into the old ISA 

Then start again. Get the bank to open a new ISA and ask them to transfer the funds from the old ISA directly to this new one

I did a live chat, after I realised my daft mistake, with the bank online. They said it would be ok if I transferred the savings back to the old ISA. Unfortunately the old ISA had disappeared when it came to a potential transfer. So I opened a brand new ISA and sent savings money to it. Guess what, the old ISA reappeared after.

I do know about ISA pitfalls, I've been contributing to them for years. Heartbreaking really, losing it after so many years playing the game...its basically my pension for later life. The lesson to be learned is don't do your  finances when tired out on a Friday night...

eskbanker

Frosty_Jack said:

I did a live chat, after I realised my daft mistake, with the bank online. They said it would be ok if I transferred the savings back to the old ISA. Unfortunately the old ISA had disappeared when it came to a potential transfer. So I opened a brand new ISA and sent savings money to it. Guess what, the old ISA reappeared after.

I understood from your earlier reference to "both the isa's are flexible", using the present tense, that the original one was still open, so if it had disappeared temporarily but is now available again, then it would seem that you have the opportunity to resolve this.

Frosty_Jack said:

I do know about ISA pitfalls, I've been contributing to them for years. Heartbreaking really, losing it after so many years playing the game...its basically my pension for later life.

Hopefully you're making plenty of use of actual pensions too?

Frosty_Jack

eskbanker said:

Frosty_Jack said:

I did a live chat, after I realised my daft mistake, with the bank online. They said it would be ok if I transferred the savings back to the old ISA. Unfortunately the old ISA had disappeared when it came to a potential transfer. So I opened a brand new ISA and sent savings money to it. Guess what, the old ISA reappeared after.

I understood from your earlier reference to "both the isa's are flexible", using the present tense, that the original one was still open, so if it had disappeared temporarily but is now available again, then it would seem that you have the opportunity to resolve this.

Frosty_Jack said:

I do know about ISA pitfalls, I've been contributing to them for years. Heartbreaking really, losing it after so many years playing the game...its basically my pension for later life.

Hopefully you're making plenty of use of actual pensions too?

Hope I can resolve this. The crux of it is, I think, the savings transfer to a new ISA and not the original one. Incidentally this is purely a transfer because of maturity coming up. I've already used up my £20k limit for this year with a different bank. The "accident" occurred because the cash ISA and the savings account have identical titles. 

Frosty_Jack

Visited a branch. They said it's all fine,  because it's all done under the Nationwide umbrella. Different if the money went out to a different bank.

wmb194

Frosty_Jack said:

Visited a branch. They said it's all fine,  because it's all done under the Nationwide umbrella. Different if the money went out to a different bank.

BIB; as long as they were both flexible it still would have been okay.