Nearly all my savings — about £190,000 — are in a stocks and shares Individual Savings Account with wealth management company Quilter. In early September last year, I decided to transfer the balance to a cash Isa with my bank, Halifax.
To cut a long story short, after five months and numerous attempts at opening the new account, the transfer has still not happened. My money is effectively trapped by this fiasco. Please help. G.A., Horwich, Lancashire.
Where’s my Isa gone? Investors who make a transfer need quick service, says Sally Hamilton
Sally Hamilton replies: It may be peak Isa season, with savers and investors debating where to stash their annual allowance of up to £20,000 by the end of the tax year deadline of April 5, but transferring an Isa is a year-round activity as people seek better deals or, like you, change their savings strategy.
Never in a month of Sundays did you expect your switch to take practically a month of Sundays — and counting — to arrange. The crazy delays had driven you to such distraction that you were tempted to just cash in your Quilter stocks and shares Isa and then open a cash Isa separately.
But this, as many readers will know, can be a huge mistake, as the tax protection of the Isa would vanish immediately and only £20,000 of new money can typically be put into Isas each tax year.
To change provider and be sure of maintaining the tax shelter on the whole sum, plan holders must trigger the process by completing an Isa transfer form with the new provider, which then contacts the current firm.
You followed this procedure by completing a transfer form with Halifax. Rules say anyone switching an Isa should expect it to be completed within a set time: this is 15 working days for a cash-to-cash transfer, or 30 calendar days for another type of transfer, such as your switch from a stocks and shares to a cash Isa.
You started the process, first attempting it online, but hit a hurdle because the Quilter address in the dropdown menu on the Halifax form was different to the one you knew.
The Halifax helpline decided you should try a paper form instead. This was posted to you and, once completed, you took it to your branch to be countersigned by a member of staff. The branch did not know what to do with you or your paperwork, and guess what, told you to complete the application online instead.
You went home to ponder this suggestion but returned the next day to have another go with the paper form. This time a staff member helped you complete it, including checking for the correct Quilter address. He said he would pass the form to the appropriate department.
Five weeks went by, and you heard nothing. You made an appointment at your branch to discuss the matter. By this time, it was October 10. Soon afterwards, you were told time was up on your first Isa transfer request, so you’d have to start again.
You did this with the help of a Halifax employee via a video call. More weeks passed and, again, nothing. On November 28, you returned to the branch where you had to complete a third form. Nearly a month went by and still no progress, so you raised a formal complaint.
Once again, silence. In desperation, you got in touch with me.
I contacted Halifax to ask what on earth was going wrong with what should have been a relatively straightforward transaction. This was in mid-January.
A few days later, they contacted you and, without any explanation, sent out yet another transfer form to you — and warned you that this could take 30 days for the transfer to complete. Aarrgh!
It wasn’t until March 1 that I got confirmation that your transfer had finally been completed. The crux of the problem lay in the two completed paper forms not reaching the correct department. No one seems to know where they went.
The money is now in your account, with interest backdated to September 7, when you made your first attempt to open it. Halifax has also paid you £450 as an apology for the poor service.
Fortunately, your Isa investments had risen in value in the time it took to get the switch done, so you were not left short due to the ups and downs of the stock market.
A Halifax spokesman says: ‘We’re really sorry your reader’s Isa transfer took longer than it should. Her new Isa is now open and, on top of ensuring she isn’t out of pocket, we’ve also made a payment in recognition that the service we provided was below the standard she rightly expected.’
Meanwhile, reader A.W. from Hertfordshire, has also been struggling, since early December 2023 to get his cash Isa switched from Halifax to Metro Bank. He asked me to help find his ‘missing £80,000’. I asked both banks to embark on a treasure hunt.
It seems that Halifax was at fault again, with a little help from the postal service. After the transfer had been triggered, Halifax issued a cheque for the total balance, as requested by Metro Bank, but it never arrived. Although the reader told Halifax in January that the funds had not been received, nothing was done to follow up.
Metro Bank chased Halifax several times, finally suggesting the funds be sent electronically instead. Halifax dragged its heels, and it wasn’t until I got in touch in the first week of March that it finally sent the money across (cancelling the original cheque).
Halifax added £1,026 to A.W.’s balance, which included lost interest and an extra sum as an apology.
I’m 79 and my Airbnb was up 36 dark stairs – can I get a refund
I arrived from Australia for a holiday in Edinburgh staying at an Airbnb flat at a cost of £2,200 for the whole of January. I, along with some relatives, climbed the 36 stairs to the flat with my luggage. But the staircase was dimly lit and dirty with no handrails.
This was dangerous, especially as I am 79 years old. I decided I could not stay at the accommodation as I could not get myself up and down the stairs safely. We all descended the stairs, using the light from a mobile phone.
I stumbled on the way down and was only prevented from falling by my brother-in-law who supported me. I moved to a Holiday Inn hotel, at a cost of £2,000 for the period, so I am now well out of pocket. A.C., Brisbane, Australia.
Sally Hamilton replies: That was not a great way to start your holiday in the UK. You came to Edinburgh to enjoy the history and architecture of what was once upon a time your hometown — and to escape the high temperatures of the Australian summer.
But you didn’t expect to grapple in semi-darkness up the stairs to reach your accommodation. Once away from the property, your brother-in-law contacted Airbnb to complain, forwarding a video of the offending darkened staircase.
This resulted in the property’s host offering a refund of £500 and a promise to fix the lights. But you did not think this was adequate, so contacted me. I felt you had a point, since things could have gone badly wrong for you on the staircase without proper lighting.
I asked Airbnb to shine some light on your complaint and consider refunding the whole £2,200 as you had no intention of returning to the property. I am pleased to say it came back quickly to agree reimbursement of your whole bill. It also thankfully confirmed the lighting had since been fixed, so hopefully other guests won’t be affected in the same way.
An Airbnb spokesman says: ‘Our original handling of this matter fell below our usual high standards, and we have reached out to the guest to apologise and offer a full refund. Issues on Airbnb are rare, and our community support team is on hand 24 hours a day to help.’
