Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)
On this page you'll discover whether you can bring a complaint about your individual savings account (ISA) to us and what will happen if you do.
On this page
Handling complaints about ISAs?
What is an ISA?
‘Individual savings accounts’ (ISAs) are a way to save money tax free. That means you can pay into your ISA up to the maximum limit for the year, and you won't pay tax on the interest or the financial return on that account.
There are four types of ISA available:
- cash ISAs – which work like a tax-free savings account
- stocks and shares ISAs – where the money you put in is invested on the stock markets
- innovative finance ISAs – sometimes called crowdfunding ISAs – which let you use your ISA allowance for peer-to-peer lending (P2P)
- lifetime ISAs
See the Moneyhelper website for more information about ISAs and how they work.
If you're unhappy about advice you've received – or the way your adviser or investment company managed your ISA – you may wish to make a complaint.
Can you complain about your ISA?
We may be able to help you if you feel:
- you lost money because your adviser or investment company made an admin error or delayed a transfer or payment into your ISA account
- you were given the wrong investments advice or misleading information, which led you to make an unsuitable investment
How to complain about your ISA
Our service is free and easy to use.
- Before bringing your complaint to us, you should make a formal complaint to the company involved.
- If they don't send you a final response letter within eight weeks – or you're unhappy with their response – you can complain to an ombudsman.
- Our complaint checker will tell you more about some of the things we need to know upfront to help you get ready to send us your complaint.
- Fill in our online complaint form. Your case will be assigned to a case handler who will get in touch when they start to investigate.
- To help us consider a complaint fairly, we may ask you to provide more information to help us understand what happened.
How we resolve complaints about ISAs
We’ll make our decision about what happened using evidence from you, the financial business and any relevant third parties. To reach a decision, we'll also consider:
- the relevant law
- any regulations that applied at the time
- any industry codes of conduct in force at the time
- the terms and conditions of your ISA
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You may feel you couldn’t take up your ISA allowance in a tax year because a business did something wrong. Or perhaps you believe you lost out because the business delayed opening your account or paying money into it.
It could be there’s been a problem with transferring your ISA. The rules for transferring an ISA vary depending on the type of ISA you’ve got. But, if your transfer has taken longer than it should, and you feel you’ve lost money, we’ll investigate.
Whatever the reason, if we think you lost money because a mistake the financial business made, we’ll ask them to put things right. We’ll tell them to compensate you for any financial loss, as well as for distress and inconvenience.
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You may feel you were given the wrong advice or information about the ISA you chose. Perhaps you wouldn’t have put your money into this type of ISA, or investment, if you had fully understood the rules or had the correct information.
For example, sometimes people tell us:
- the ISA wasn’t suitable and they not only lost out but couldn’t take advantage of a better investment
- the risks of a stocks and shares ISA weren't clearly explained to them
- they didn’t know that there are conditions attached to a Lifetime ISA which affect how you can use it for buying a property
- they’ve discovered they have to pay capital gains tax when selling an investment that should have gone into an ISA
If you say you were misinformed or badly advised, we’ll:
- look at the instructions you were given
- check that your ISA literature and advertising were clear
If you tell us that you would have invested your money elsewhere if you'd had better advice or clearer information, we'll check:
- whether that's likely in all the circumstances
- which alternatives would've been possible
If we decide you paid tax on the sale of an investment that should have gone into an ISA, we’ll ask the business responsible to pay you compensation. The amount will depend on:
- how long you’re like to hold the investment
- how much the investment is likely to grow in that time
- how you have used you capital gains tax allowance in the past
- the rate of tax the customer you’re liable for
If your complaint is about a Lifetime ISA that you're using to buy a house, we'll look at whether you've lost out because of unclear information. It could be that you had to borrow money to make up a shortfall in your deposit. If you took a loan or used a credit card, we may recommend a refund with interest charged at 8%. We'll also consider whether this caused you any distress and inconvenience.
We'll tell you whether we believe you've been treated unfairly or not. If we don't uphold your complaint, we'll tell you why and explain how we reached our decision.
If we think you've lost money because you received the wrong advice, or because the financial business made a mistake, we'll tell them to put things right.
We may also tell them to pay you compensation for any distress or inconvenience you have suffered.
Further information
There's more about ISAs and other tax-efficient ways to save or invest on the MoneyHelper website.
Gov.uk offers guidance on ISAs and who can hold them.
You'll find everything you need to know about Lifetime ISAs on the government's campaign website.
