LISA provider recommendations

Would everyone think me crazy to withdraw and close my LISA entirely and move it all where I want it on Freetrade instead.

Current value Ā£324
After 25% withdrawal fee Iā€™d be left with Ā£243
I personally have contributed Ā£225 into it. So Iā€™d still be ā€œupā€.

On a separate note, I have a moneybox cash LISA. The reason that I went with cash is that I think Iā€™ll want to buy a house in 4-7 years. Do people think itā€™s better being in an s&s Lisa even for a short(er) time frame?

Probably not
Although I might of put in a stable trust like smt

I assume this wasnā€™t directed at me

You could wait until Freetrade offers Lisaā€™s and then transfer it then

No
But l personally donā€™t think thatā€™s crazy at all

If you withdraw it and close the LISA youā€™ll need to start again with the one year wait before it can be used just FYI.

Why not transfer the whole thing to AJ Bell?

The 25% withdrawal penalty works out to a loss of around 6.25% because LISAs give the 25% bonus, followed by a 25% penalty on new total amount for withdrawing early.

I donā€™t think you are crazy for withdrawing, but personally I would keep it, or transfer to another provider than pay the penalty.

According to a recent Times article the penalty is costing people a fair amount of money.

When I signed up to Freetrade a few months ago that was the plan, as I heard it was on the horizon. Then that all changed and last I heard LISA was put way to the back of schedule for new developments :man_shrugging: So it means waiting a year maybe.

Iā€™d love to have all my investments in one place. Thatā€™s why Iā€™m considering just closing my LISA and taking my money and moving into direct investments that isnā€™t charging Ā£1 a month (on top of stock fees)

Itā€™s understandable that you want to keep all your investments together but is it really worth paying the LISA penalty by withdrawing?

I see that someone already mentioned AJ Bell - yes, they do charge Ā£9.95 to purchase/sell, however, you can get round this by purchasing your ETF via their Regular Investments facility, which will only cost Ā£1.50 per purchase (this is what I do). The purchases only take place once a month (around the 10th) but if you are investing regularly, I guess this shouldnā€™t be an issue.

Perhaps worth looking into transferring to AJ Bell and then, when Freetrade have their LISA set up, transfer over so all your investments are together. That way, no penalties will be paid.

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Is there any timeline on a Freetrade Lifetime ISA??
As itā€™s not mentioned on the new roadmap I can only assume itā€™s not in the plan anytime soon unfortunately.
I dislike paying the fees on my Nutmeg account (as itā€™s starting to add up now!) and would like to have much more of a choice in what I invest in anyway - so looks like a transfer to AJ Bell would be the current cheapest option, until FT eventually offer a LISAā€¦ hopefully! :crossed_fingers:

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The only hint of LISA was the ISA transfers announcement saying that one ā€œcannot transfer JISA LISA (yet)ā€. Not sure if they are just keeping the door open / not making a forward looking statement, or if JISA/LISA accounts are in the works.

Some clarification from FT on this would be goodā€¦

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For a house deposit I would say no

For retirement I would say maybe

I have mine in Newcastle Building Society but the website is awful, will probably move it to Moneybox in the next tax year.

MSE has a great article on all the available LISAā€™s and clearly stares their costs:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/lifetime-isas/#bestbuys

Edit: appears that at least one of the cash LISAs has disappeared? Skipton used to be on there but isnā€™t any longer so guessing thereā€™s more providers now (Skipton were the first one to offer it).

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Hi all,

So, I use Freetrade for my investment portfolio & I use MoneyBox for my savings as they have automatic roundup and a decent interest rate on their savings account, additionally, Iā€™ll probably look at using them for my pensions in the future.

Anyway, I wanted to open a lifetime ISA but Iā€™m confused as how these work.

Are you limited to 1 lifetime ISA period or is it 1 per year?

Moneybox says I can open one of two ISAā€™s with them either:

Cash ISA - Deposit cash and use it as a savings account for mortgage or retirement
Stocks & Shares ISA - Have my savings invested into stocks and shares lifetime ISA

It says I can have one or the other (not both) as I said above, I have no interest in using MoneyBox for Stocks & Shares, at least not for now, so Iā€™d probably want the Cash ISA, however will this mean I am then unable to open a Stocks & Shares ISA with Freetrade in the same year? What about after a year?

Iā€™m confused to how these ISAā€™s work and would appreciate some clarity from people who hold either one of these ISAā€™s and may be able to help clear this up for me.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

You can still open a Freetrade ISA, but they will both use the same Ā£20k per year allowance. Also you can transfer from a cash ISA to a S&S ISA without using the allowance.

This is not financial advice but why are you thinking of going for the cash ISA? cash ISAs are tax wrappers, basically a savings account where the interest isnā€™t taxed but note that interest is tax free up to Ā£1k (Ā£500 if you are higher rate tax payer) so you need a lot of money with these interest rates for cash ISAs to be worth it.

Nutmeg here, been pretty good, obviously a stocks and shares so not looking too healthy right now but wasnā€™t looking to buy anytime soon anyway