The Lemon Fool

When my VCTs reach the end of the 5 year hold (to obtain the tax break) I put them on my list of potential sales with a view to recirculating the funds in new purchases. For historical reasons I hold accounts with HL, Fidelity and Charles Stanley Direct (originally Fastrade). In the past I have used the CSD account to sell the VCTs - I have sent them certificates and they have converted them into my Nominee account, free of charge, and I have sold them on the market for the usual fee. Earlier this week I sent them two VCT certificates (for two different VCTs) and received a response that they would now wish to charge £50 per certificate to place them in my account, and if I did not wish this to happen, they would arrange to return the certificates - this is what I have requested. When I mentioned that this charge was not present in their current price list they stated that it was not a "core service offering". In mitigation they stated that the charge was "per line of stock rather than per certificate" , and it would be waived for accounts valued greater than £50000. Since this is a historical account which I have been running down, I expect it will now be run down even faster.
Is there anyone out there who has used HL for this task?

Scotia, clearly CSD are changing rules on the hoof, having previously offered sponsored Crest accounts they now deny all knowledge of them, as we discussed on a previous post.
Sharedeal active accept certs free to put into Crest and charge £9.50 to sell them. I have always found them very efficient, perhaps you should use them.

Hi
HL process works well, free to transfer stock in, but 1% charge (minimum £20) to sell, so more expensive than others that have been mentioned. You could always take advantage of the Bed & ISA and sell for free in Share account and transfer funds into ISA. Process has worked seamlessly for years.
Hope that helps.

Thanks for the responses - I'll go for HL since I already have accounts with them.
And another aside - the CSD address in Edinburgh has also changed, so it looks like there may have been a bit of a shake up. I must confess that their statement that it was not a "core service offering" surprised me.

Thanks. Ive just put two certificates into CSD for exactly this reason, with no charge levied. I do have >£50000 of stock in the A/C, which probably explains matters, but will keep a sharp eye out for any changes to this threshold.

Shavtedagin wrote:Hi
HL process works well, free to transfer stock in, but 1% charge (minimum £20) to sell, so more expensive than others that have been mentioned. You could always take advantage of the Bed & ISA and sell for free in Share account and transfer funds into ISA. Process has worked seamlessly for years.
Hope that helps.

I'll second that. I have used HL for all my VCT sales and for the last few years have only used their Bed and ISA service thus avoiding all charges. To save some time I print off a Crest transfer form from their website and enclose it completed with the certificates. There is still a few days wait until one can deal while they register the transfer to their nominee account and then one can trigger the Bed and ISA online.

barchid wrote:Sharedeal active accept certs free to put into Crest and charge £9.50 to sell them. I have always found them very efficient, perhaps you should use them.

Hope it's OK to resurrect this thread.

Has anyone used Jarvis X-O to transfer certificated VCTs and then sell them? It looks like almost the same product as Sharedeal Active (both are run by Jarvis), but £5.95 per trade.

On the other hand, X-O doesn't seem to offer trading over the phone (Sharedeal Active does). For VCTs, does that mean worse spreads and/or not being able to deal at certain times?

London
Oddly enough I sent sharedeal active some certs last Wednesday by 2nd class post, they were in Crest by Friday pm, very efficient.
When I looked at x-o a fair time ago I noticed that the dealing costs were lower but their charges for movements etc were rather more than active.
Not sure if that is still the case but I've always had good service from Jarvis with my active a/c.
I like iweb very much too but they do not accept vct's.

londoninvestor wrote:

barchid wrote:Sharedeal active accept certs free to put into Crest and charge £9.50 to sell them. I have always found them very efficient, perhaps you should use them.

Hope it's OK to resurrect this thread.

Has anyone used Jarvis X-O to transfer certificated VCTs and then sell them? It looks like almost the same product as Sharedeal Active (both are run by Jarvis), but £5.95 per trade.

On the other hand, X-O doesn't seem to offer trading over the phone (Sharedeal Active does). For VCTs, does that mean worse spreads and/or not being able to deal at certain times?

In the end, I did go for X-O (I was deterred from Sharedeal Active by the £15 charge for a cash withdrawal.)

All very painless - I put the certificates in the post on Thursday, they appeared in my account over the weekend and were tradeable on Monday.

They don't have a phone service, so everything has to be done online; but (unlike HL) they let you trade VCTs online.

Londoninvestor
I am pleased that your first experience with Jarvis has been as positive as I find them.
I take your point re the cash withdrawal fee on the sharedealactive a/c which is really £18, after vat.
What is the fee for cash withdrawal on the x-o, I looked on their website but failed to see it ?
My account has been open over 5 years now & I have always found it does what it says it does on the can.

barchid wrote:What is the fee for cash withdrawal on the x-o, I looked on their website but failed to see it ?

It's a very pleasing zero