Selling Shares (Paper Certificate) One Time Only

Nilly999

I have small number of shares for which I hold a paper share certificate - ie they are not managed as part of a portfolio or held by a broker. They're worth a few hundred quid and I want to sell them and get the cash.

I understand I've probably got to find a brokerage platform that supports certificated share dealing and set up an account etc - but given I'm only ever going to do this once, simplicity and a reputable platform that will do this for the lowest cost/commission are my key criteria.

Can anyone recommend such a platform for a one-time-only transaction?

no_faith

I've just been trying to sell my shares. I Can NOT recommend Equiniti, not sure if they have any customer service, spent 3 hrs on phone trying to speak to a human yesterday - failed.

Eco_Miser

Scottish Widows Share Dealing (formerly known as Iweb, and part of LBG) charge £5 per sale.

Moving the certificates to their platform is free. https://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/investing/ways-to-invest/share-dealing-services/transfers.html

cc123mm456

I suggest Scottish Widows Share Dealing (part of Lloyds banking group).

https://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/investing/ways-to-invest/share-dealing-services/share-dealing-account.html

Once you have set up an account, there is a transfer form to complete and post with the share certificate(s). When the shares are transferred to your share dealing account, you can then sell each company holding, for the one-off fee of £5. There are no other fees to pay.

Edit: cross-posted with Eco_Miser, but good that we think alike 😀

caper7

I have a Scottish Widows/Iweb account, I also have some paper certificate shares.

If I have no immediate plans to sell, would it still be a good idea to move these shares to Iweb, given it's free?

I haven't thought to do it before because I didn't realise it was free, because it's nice to receive the tax vouchers/ other important docs in paper for my records and because while there are currently no charges for holding investments on the platform, unlike most other platforms, that could always change.

Not wishing to derail the thread, but if anyone has any thoughts on this...

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82022512#Comment_82022512

”If I have no immediate plans to sell, would it still be a good idea to move these shares to Iweb, given it's free?”

Yes, definitely, I would. It makes administration so much easier both for you and for your executors and you don't need to worry about losing bits of paper. There are quite a number of fee free brokers so I doubt SW/iWeb will begin charging to hold an account: Halifax Share Dealing's other brands already do, this is its cut-price brand.

SW/iWeb has a feature to automatically pay away dividends as well and it provides and annual tax certificate.

Anyway, in the next couple of years paper certificates are due to be scrapped so one way or another you’ll need to something.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digitisation-taskforce-july-2025/digitisation-taskforce-final-report-july-2025-accessible#indicative-timeline-of-the-final-recommendations-of-the-digitisation-taskforce

refluxer

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82022512#Comment_82022512

Talk of eradicating paper share certificates seems to have been around for a number of years now but the latest predicted deadline appears to be the end of next year so it's likely they'll get digitised at some point by then, whether you want them to or not.

I was in a similar position until recently (holding some paper certificates that I had no need to sell but hadn't got round to digitising) and the company went through a process which caused the shares to be digitised automatically which then meant I had to pay a fairly substantial fee to transfer them from the default registrar to my current broker. The transfer also took (a rather tense) 3 weeks (during which time they effectively disappeared), whereas the last time I posted certificates to an online broker (X-O, who I used previously), they were processed and appeared online within just a few days of being received.

So… based on that experience and the fact that future digitisation is inevitable, I would personally post them to Scottish Widows while you're able to do it on your own terms.

NB. If your shares are worth a lot of money, the cost of replacing lost certificates can be substantial (£104 for £5-10k's-worth with Equiniti, for example) so, considering the current state of the Royal Mail 1st/2nd class post service, I'd recommend paying extra for the 'Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm' service as this mail is treated separately to 1st and 2nd class and therefore much more likely to actually arrive (and a lot quicker).