Quick ISA Question

[joshleb]

I took out the First Home ISA Government scheme last October, and once the lifetime ISA launches in a couple of days I an going to transfer my savings to that.

Am I still able to invest into nutmeg or fiver a day type site? Or has my one ISA allowance a year been used up?

I've tried googling but I feel like I'm going round in circles with different answers in places.

[GTIAlex]

joshleb said:

I took out the First Home ISA Government scheme last October, and once the lifetime ISA launches in a couple of days I an going to transfer my savings to that.

Am I still able to invest into nutmeg or fiver a day type site? Or has my one ISA allowance a year been used up?

I've tried googling but I feel like I'm going round in circles with different answers in places.

I just came on here wondering the exact same.
I presume its all dependant on how much is saved in the ISAs

[JulianPH]

joshleb said:

I took out the First Home ISA Government scheme last October, and once the lifetime ISA launches in a couple of days I an going to transfer my savings to that.

Am I still able to invest into nutmeg or fiver a day type site? Or has my one ISA allowance a year been used up?

I've tried googling but I feel like I'm going round in circles with different answers in places.

If you want to transfer your Help to Buy ISA into a Lifetime ISA you need to do so in the first year (i.e from 6th April 2017 to 5 April 2018).

The transfer does not impact on your ISA allowance at all provided you do not make any further payments into your Help to Buy ISA from April 6th (if you do these are counted against your ISA allowance.

As of 6th April you have a £20,000 ISA allowance with a maximum of £4,000 of this in your Lifetime ISA, leaving £16,000 for a normal ISA.

Transfers of any value do not count against your annual allowance.

I hope this helps.

[joshleb]

Okay, so if I transfer to a lifetime ISA and pay into the lifetime ISA, I will be allowed to set up one with Fiveraday/nutmeg up to 16k?

[JulianPH]

joshleb said:

Okay, so if I transfer to a lifetime ISA and pay into the lifetime ISA, I will be allowed to set up one with Fiveraday/nutmeg up to 16k?

Yes. ISA transfers have no connection whatsoever with your annual ISA allowance.

A transfer is money already in an ISA (so not a new contribution) and your annual allowance relates only to new contributions (not transfers of money already in an ISA).

Obviously the Help to Buy ISA to Lifetime ISA rules I set out above still apply (but probably don't impact on you).

If the ISA allowance stays the same you can invest £20,000 a year for the rest of your life. So you may at some point have hundreds of thousands (or millions) of pounds in your ISA. Moving it from one provider to another is not adding new money though, it is just a transfer.

[JulianPH]

I should add, you can't open the same type of ISA with different providers in any given tax year.

So a Lifetime ISA with X and a stocks & shares ISA with Y is fine. But you can't have two Lifetime ISAs in the same year or two stocks & shares ISAs in the same year.

[mdianuk]

JulianPH said:

I should add, you can't open the same type of ISA with different providers in any given tax year.

So a Lifetime ISA with X and a stocks & shares ISA with Y is fine. But you can't have two Lifetime ISAs in the same year or two stocks & shares ISAs in the same year.

But could you utilise your ISA allowance with both a provider such as Fiveraday, and Nutmeg too, albeit sticking under the £20k limit?

Also, do you know if said providers allow transfer in's? (i've emailed them to ask anyway!).

[JulianPH]

mdianuk said:

But could you utilise your ISA allowance with both a provider such as Fiveraday, and Nutmeg too, albeit sticking under the £20k limit?

Also, do you know if said providers allow transfer in's? (i've emailed them to ask anyway!).

Providing both providers offer the Lifetime ISA (not everyone does) then yes, you can do both with the same provider.

All providers allow transfers in to their ISAs