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00:01The clock is ticking. There's less than a month till the tax year ends. So the ISA deadline is
00:08upon us. ISA blurbs, sorry. And if you don't use this year's tax-free ISA allowance, you lose it.
00:15So tonight, everything you ever wanted to know about ISAs but were afraid to ask,
00:19how they really work, cash versus shares ISAs, full savings best buys to boost interest,
00:25and as it's ISA season, they're higher right now, and what taxes you're actually shielding your money
00:31from in an ISA. Plus, in my news, you can use a major car finance reclaim update and a new
00:38tool
00:38to help with that, beat the coming stamp price hike, £10 champagne, and much more. Let's do it.
00:52Wave your wallet, everybody.
00:54Yay! Hello, welcome.
00:56Fabulous. Give those all its away. Well, tonight, we'd love to hear from you. So get in touch with
01:00your questions. All the usual ways are on the screen right now. But before we get into the big
01:05subject tonight, obviously, energy bills in the news. It's huge. So David got in touch with us
01:11here. This question, my energy fix finishes on the 4th of April. Should I look to fix now or wait
01:17till
01:17after? So the first thing to say is within the last 50 days of your fix, they cannot charge you
01:23early
01:23exit penalties. So you are free to fix without any penalty for doing so. As to whether you should or
01:29shouldn't, look, I don't know what's going to happen in the Middle East conflict, whether these high
01:33prices are going to continue, or as President Trump said yesterday, which has seen some prices drop a
01:37little. They're still high, but they dropped from where they were a couple of days ago,
01:39that it's all going to be over soon. Right now, though, if you were to get onto a comparison site,
01:45there are three fixes cheaper than the price cap. So the price caps there, they're about four or five
01:50percent cheaper. And on the 1st of April, the price cap will drop, but all existing fixes will drop
01:55too, which I've talked about many times before on the show, because of a change to the way the policy
01:58goes. So if you are worried about big price hikes in future, the risk averse thing to do, the safe
02:05thing to do is to lock in on a fix cheaper than the price cap. You know the price isn't
02:09going to
02:10rise over the next year. I can't promise with hindsight, if everything goes back to normal, it
02:15would have been the very cheapest thing to do, but it is the thing to do that would prevent any
02:18price
02:19rises. So if you're nervous, that is the thing. One more tip. When you go on a comparison site, because
02:23that will dictate who your cheapest is, your usage and where you live, some of these cheap fixes don't
02:28pay comparison sites, so some comparison sites hide them. So I'd go onto one that doesn't, and you can find
02:34those for yourselves, or if you're going to one that does, there'll be a box at the bottom that says
02:38show all tariffs. Make sure you tick show all tariffs. Okay, awesome. Well, let's get into your
02:44big briefing on ISAs. Sure. Okie dokie, your money is nicer in an ISA. The ISA year ends on the
02:525th of
02:52April. If you don't use it, you lose it. Now, each tax year, over-18s, 18s and overs, get £20
02:58,000
02:58tax-free ISA savings or investments allowance. But the most important thing to understand,
03:04an ISA isn't a product. It's just a tax wrapper. And I've been using the same analogy to explain this
03:11for now 25 years. It's my silver anniversary of this analogy. I'm getting old. I'm not going to
03:16stop. I'm going to do it again, though. Here we go. Right. ISAs are as simple as a piece of
03:20cake. So
03:21here you go. Normally, you've got your strawberry savings or shares. You have them. And you've got your
03:27investment or your savings account. And they're over there. And you're earning your interest or
03:31your dividends or your capital gains on top. And then the tax man or woman can come along and
03:37take a bite. All an ISA is, is a wrapper. Think of it like cling film. You can choose to
03:44put it over
03:44your savings or you can choose to put it over your shares. There you go. The savings is still the
03:51savings. It hasn't changed. It's still the same savings account. The shares haven't changed.
03:54There's still an investment account. Nothing has changed. The only difference is now the
03:59tax man or woman can't bite it. So all of it is untaxable. It's tax-free. That is all an
04:05ISA is. So the reason it's getting urgent right now is your annual allowance doesn't carry over.
04:14And if you don't use it, you lose it. Now, you get a new £20,000 ISA allowance on the
04:186th
04:19of April as that's a new tax year. But if you've got money to put in now, even if you
04:24don't feel
04:25you're going to use it next year and you haven't got enough to fill the ISA allowance, you may as
04:28well get it in now just in case something happens next year and you're more flush than you thought
04:31you would be. But the really important thing to understand about ISAs is once you put your
04:37savings or your investment in an ISA, it stays tax-free year after year. So five years ago,
04:44you might have put £20,000 in and four years ago, another £20,000 and three years ago, £20,000
04:47and two
04:48years ago, £20,000, one year ago, this year and next on the 6th of April, another £20,000. In
04:53total,
04:54that's £140,000 if you were lucky enough to have that, you have protected in an ISA. And that's why
04:59some people who've been doing it for years with the interest have hundreds of thousands of pounds in
05:04cash ISAs and some shares investors where they've had investment growth too are ISA millionaires.
05:09over a million pounds of investments protected from tax in an ISA. That's why it's important.
05:16Final note though, not from this April, next day, I'm out of breath doing that, I'm getting on.
05:22Next April, the cash ISA limit will drop to £12,000 for those under the age of 65. The shares
05:28ISA limit
05:29stays at £20,000. Now you can have a mix of cash and shares. So you could put £12,000
05:33in cash and
05:348,000 in shares, or you could have all 20,000 in shares. You can have a mix of the
05:38two. The reason
05:40that's being done, the Chancellor argues this is to encourage younger people to invest. I've done
05:45many times before my thoughts on that. I'm not going to go into it today because we're doing the
05:48practicals, but that's what she says. Sharon is asking a question on that. As of 2027, I believe
05:53the maximum ISA amount is £12,000. If you have an ISA currently at £20,000, with the changes in
06:002027 affect my £20,000 ISA. No. The limit is on new money that you put in. Once money is
06:08in an ISA,
06:09it isn't new money. And the same applies, by the way, people often ask this question, like,
06:13if I've got an old ISA and I transfer it to a new ISA, transfer, not take the money out,
06:17does that use up my allowance? No. Your allowance is only used up when you put new money in an
06:24ISA
06:24that is not already in an ISA. And as that's not new money, it doesn't count towards the
06:29allowance. You're absolutely fine. OK, we've got a question in our audience. Lorraine,
06:33good evening. What's your question for Martin? Hiya, Lorraine. You were so smiley before.
06:37Thank you. Lovely to see you. I just want to find out, do you think savings should come before
06:44investment? Like, you should focus on saving before you start investing? So, look, I mean,
06:48the first thing I do is get rid of any high-interest debts. That would be my priority. After that,
06:52I would always want someone to have a cash emergency fund. Three to six months' worth of
06:57bills that you have readily available in case something happens so that you don't need to
07:01borrow to get the money. After that, then we start to think about investment. And I'm going to go
07:07straight into this. So, watch this. The question I often get, yours is sort of a different version,
07:11is cash or shares, ISA, which is best? But most people mean what you've just asked me,
07:15should I save or should I invest, when they ask that. Now, you may well be already investing via
07:19a pension. But as a nation, we tend to be risk-averse and we under-invest in this country.
07:27So, back in December, I did a Beginner's Guide to Investment programme. You can watch it back on
07:32ITVX, because I'm not going to go into the full details about investing today, but that really is
07:36worth watching. And I'm hoping in a month or two's time, when I've got some hour-long shows,
07:40because I need that time, I'm going to do another investing programme. But this is an updated graphic
07:45from that show, which will tell you everything you need to understand. So, that is what your
07:49returns in savings would have been over 10 years from £1,000. There were some very low
07:53interest rate years there, which meant it didn't compound very much. Put £1,000 in there,
07:57you'd have £1,327 in now, in the very top savings. Cash ice is about the same, because we
08:03haven't factored in tax. Less than inflation. Inflation has gone up a bit higher. Now, let's look
08:08at three trackers, index trackers, where they would be if you'd invested. Okay? So, the FTSE 100
08:16index, this is where the dividends get reinvested in on all of these, would be at £2,400. All-cap
08:22global tracker, £3,300 nearly. S&P 500 US shares, £3,800. That's not a recommendation for
08:29those, that's just showing you the type of returns from a broad spread of investment. Put million-one
08:34share, very highly risky. Put it in a fund with lots of shares, you're spreading the risk. You
08:39might even have all those forms. We need to say, past performance does not guarantee the future.
08:44But that is why, once you've got your emergency fund, not enough of you have got some of your
08:50assets in investing. There is a golden rule here, though. Only invest what you won't need for at
08:56least five years. Shares volatile. You don't want to be forced to take your money out when it's low,
09:01or a volatile time. We have a volatile time at the moment. You want to make sure you've
09:04cleared any expensive debts first, and build up an emergency fund, as I said to you. What
09:08do you think? Are you nervous investing? Where are you on this? I'm just lost on which option
09:14I should take, if I should just go into investing and not worry about the emergency fund. I would
09:20have your emergency fund, because if an emergency hits, you don't want to suddenly have to shell
09:23shares at the bottom to get your cash out. After that, if it's money you won't need for five
09:28years or more, it really is worth thinking about investing. Do watch that other show that we
09:32did back in December, and hopefully again in a month or two. So, we've taught shares
09:38ISAs. Let's talk about what they protect you from. So, if you're going to do investing, what
09:42are the taxes that you'd normally pay on investing? The first is capital gains tax. Do you know
09:47what that is? It's a tax on profits. So, let's imagine I bought shares for £1,000. I've sold
09:53them for £10,000. That's a £9,000 profit. That is the capital gain. That's how it's phrased.
09:59But it's in that particular year, you get £3,000 that you're allowed. But the interesting
10:04thing to understand about this, if I bought them for £1,000 10 years ago and sold them
10:09for £10,000 now, there's no different tax treatment to if I bought them a month ago for
10:14£1,000 and sold them to £10,000 now. So, it all crystallises just at the point you sell
10:19it, and that's quite important to understand. That's where ISAs really come into their own.
10:23There's also dividend tax. That's the income you might get each year from profits a company
10:29distributes or through funds, lots of different companies distributes. Again, you have a £500
10:33a year allowance on that. In a cash ISA, a savings account you don't pay tax on, what
10:40it does is protects the interest earned on savings from income tax. So, there are lots
10:44of allowances on that. I'm going through that in the second part in detail, so I'll skip that
10:47now. So, lots of people say to me, should I save or should I invest? If I'm going to do
10:51both,
10:51which one is better to use my ISA allowance for? Okay, so first of all, which you're most
10:57likely to pay tax on? Are you going to use up your allowances? If you're not going to
11:00use up your allowance, then you would use the other one. Make sense? But here's the
11:04really big thing. When you're investing, you're hoping for faster growth. Faster growth means
11:10outside an ISA, you would pay more tax. Let's do an absurd example. You put £10,000 in an
11:16ISA, you're lucky enough for it to be worth a million pounds in five years' time. You should
11:20be so lucky. Right? You then sell it, you're going to pay a huge amount of capital gains
11:26on it. But if you put it in your ISA, it would all be tax free. So, if you're doing
11:31both,
11:32the risk of tax is higher on a high-performing investment, so you probably want to hedge more
11:38towards using that for your ISA. Does that make sense? Yeah. Good. Phew! Right. Okay. I'm having
11:44a sip of water, you carry on. Okay, so Jo has been in touch and she's asking, if you've put
11:49money in
11:49a cash ISA, can you move that into a stocks and shares ISA? You absolutely can transfer, so that's
11:56when you ask the new provider to move it, don't take the money out, from a cash ISA to a
12:00stocks and
12:01shares ISA. Equally, you can transfer from a stocks and shares ISA to a cash ISA, for now. From April
12:092027, you'll still be allowed to move from cash to shares, but when they drop the cash ISA limit,
12:13you will no longer, if you're under 65, be able to move from shares to a cash ISA, so you
12:18won't be
12:19able to transfer that way. Got it. What about this, then, from Gary? Gary's asking, can you have a cash
12:24ISA
12:25and a stocks and shares ISA in the same financial year? Absolutely. You can have one of each.
12:30Fabulous. You could have 1,000 in a cash ISA, 19,000 in a shares ISA, or 19,000 in
12:34a cash ISA,
12:351,000 in a shares ISA. You can mix and match. Yeah. Okay. Nice and sweet. That was short. That
12:39was
12:39really good. Well done. Okay. Well, so, coming up, savings and cash ISAs. Which is the best? Which
12:46should you use? Plus, all the best deals this week. We'll see you then.
13:02Welcome back. We are talking ISAs today. We've already talked cash ISAs versus shares ISAs and why
13:06many of you are under-investing and should take a look at that. But we're going to focus on savings
13:10and cash ISAs, including all the best buys in this part. What are people saying, Jeanette?
13:15Lots of people are happy that this is good timing for this show coming up to the end of
13:19the tax year. Lots coming in online. David has this question for you. I'm not very good
13:23with maths and interest rates. I have £20,000 in a bonus savings account. Would I be better
13:28off moving to a cash ISA? What's the difference? Okay. So, look, a cash ISA is just a savings
13:34account you don't pay tax on. So, there are two issues that will help you make your decision.
13:39First of all, do you pay tax? Because if you pay tax on savings, that reduces the interest
13:45that you would get after tax in a normal savings, but cash ISAs are the same. And second, which
13:51one pays more interest? And that's exactly what I'm going to run through now. Keep that
13:54question up because I think that might be useful if you don't mind. Okay. So, first, I've
13:57got a graph for you. This is easy access top cash ISA versus top normal savings over roughly
14:05the last year. As you can see, you go for a time cash ISAs and then normal saving overtakes.
14:11But you look here and just suddenly, today mostly, it's gone up 0.2% and suddenly cash
14:17ISAs have overtaken normal savings. Two reasons for that. First of all, we're entering ISA season,
14:24the end of the tax year and the beginning of the new year, which is when most people use
14:27their ISA. So, let's just put ISA season up. Can you see the trend? Yeah. So, you look
14:32at last year, we had a huge spike coming up to the deadline. All these small firms were
14:37fighting. And they were doing it by putting their bonuses up, their one-year bonuses that
14:40they give on top, not the underlying interest rates. And they went right up. And we're following
14:44quite a similar pattern. This may well go up further, as you've seen today. Why has it
14:50gone up today? Probably because we're doing this show. They know we're doing this show.
14:54And we've already seen three or four movements today for them to be top of my Best Buy table
14:57that we're going to do in a moment. That's what goes on. And there'll be other things out
15:00there that drive these to go up over the next months when newspapers are doing big articles
15:04and so on and such the like. So, there is a chance if you wait a week or two, you
15:08might
15:08get a higher rate on the cash ISA. But we're going to be doing it tonight. That's roughly
15:12where we're standing. A couple more points on that. Cash ISA fixes and normal savings, the
15:16moves are less pronounced. What's going to happen to interest rates? Well, if we'd been talking
15:22two weeks ago, we're expecting a possible rate cut to come. Now we're expecting a hold.
15:27Some people, even at the extreme at this, go on, expect interest rates to go up. But
15:31certainly, what it's easy to say is the likelihood of interest rates falling in the short to medium
15:36term is less than it was. It's less high than it was. Jeanette.
15:39OK. Right. So, let's go then to a question that we've got from Thomas. Now, Thomas is saying,
15:44if I have £20,000 in a cash ISA, can I still earn £1,000 in interest or on other
15:50savings
15:50before facing tax on other interest earnings?
15:54Yes, you absolutely can. Cash ISAs are not taxable. Now, there are some things that are
16:01taxable, but you don't pay tax on them. So, they count towards tax, but you're within your
16:04allowance that you can earn tax-free. Cash ISA interest is never taxed. It's not taxable.
16:10It doesn't matter how much you earn. So, absolutely, you can. So, just to point out, first thing
16:14to note here, by the way, even if you're not going to get a tax gain and you're doing easy
16:18access, you may as well put your money in a cash ISA because it pays more and it's just a
16:21savings
16:21account you don't pay tax on. But now, let's have a look at how the tax works. Lots of different
16:27allowances on savings tax here. The first one, the personal allowance, £12,570 a year that you
16:35can earn from any source, earnings, rent, savings interest without paying tax on. Most people get
16:43that unless you start earning over £100,000 when it's taken away. You all know about the personal
16:46allowance. Yeah. The next one not that many people know about is called the starting rate
16:52for savings. This is another £5,000 of savings interest you can earn a year on top of the
16:59personal allowance. And this is designed for people who have low work earnings but high interest
17:04on savings, often people who are retired. And here's how it works. For every pound of earnings
17:10you earn above this allowance, you lose a pound on your starting savings rate. So imagine you
17:16earn £13,570. You're £1,000 above that. You can now only have £4,000 of tax-free interest
17:23in your savings due to the starting savings rate. And by the time you earn from work, £17,570,
17:30this is gone. So it's only for people on low work earnings and high interest on savings.
17:35They're your first two. Next we get the big one that many of you will know about. The personal
17:41savings allowance. And this is on top of those two. This is the fact that a basic rate taxpayer,
17:4720% taxpayer, can earn £1,000 a year of interest in any form of savings at all without paying
17:54tax on it. That's the £1,000 that was being discussed over there. Now the top savings accounts
17:59at the moment pay about £4,500. So you need about £22,000, just a little over £22,000
18:05in the top savings account before you earned £1,000 interest. So if you've got less than
18:10that, you're not going to be paying tax on your savings interest because it's tax-free.
18:14High rate tax, because it's within your personal savings allowance rather, high rate taxpayers
18:18pay £500 a year of interest they can make each year tax-free. It's about £11,000 saved
18:23at the top rate. If you're an additional rate taxpayer earning over £125,000, you don't get
18:28one of these. So you've got your personal allowance, your starting rate for savings, and on top
18:32of that, up to another £1,000 in your personal savings allowance. And then you get what we're
18:38talking about today. Your cash ISA, a savings account you don't pay tax on. You can put up
18:44to £20,000 of tax year in, as you know, and crucially, the interest earned in a cash ISA
18:51does not count towards the personal allowance, does not count towards the starting rate of
18:56savings, does not count towards the personal savings allowance. It is totally separate from
19:01that. So anything you earn in there is not taxable. I should note, premium bonds work
19:05roughly the same way, but it's not an annual allowance, it's a maximum £50,000 you can
19:08put in, in total. Those are the main ways that you can save without paying tax on them.
19:15OK, so Greg's been in touch, and Greg is asking, can ISA interest take you into a higher tax
19:19ban?
19:20No, because it would have to be taxable to do that. ISA interest is not taxable, so it
19:24does not affect your tax ban.
19:25Got it, perfect. And then how about this then from Robert? Robert's saying, I have an ISA at the
19:30moment with a high street bank. It's currently got a rate of only 1.06%. Could you suggest
19:36a better ISA for me with a well-known bank?
19:39I mean, I could suggest a better ISA for you with hundreds of banks. That's a terrible rate.
19:42Check your ISA and savings rates now. You really should be in the four-ish tight percents,
19:46if you're not ditch and switch. Let's go into Best Buys, though I warn you, in ISA season,
19:52this gets a little bit complicated. Here we go. OK. I'm going to try and stand here. So
19:59let's look at the top easy access cash ISAs. That's where you can put your money in and
20:04you can take it out whenever you want. Simple as that. It's not locked away. They're variables,
20:08so the rate can move up and down. Now, when I started writing my graphics this morning,
20:13I was writing the top pair was 4.54%. We've had a lot of moves since then. The top pair
20:21is only for
20:22new customers. It's trading 212. It's paying 4.68%. Now, 1.08% of that is a bonus that only
20:29lasts a
20:29year and is only for new customers and you don't get it on if you transfer in. But if you're
20:33just
20:34doing new money, that's the highest payer, clearly. If you want to transfer existing ISAs in as well,
20:40remember, don't take the money out. You fill in the transfer firm and let them move it for you.
20:44Then the top rate is Moneybox at 4.52%, but only three withdrawals a year and only for new customers.
20:50Or Vida savings at 4.16%, minimum two withdrawals a year, but you don't have to be a new customer
20:56to
20:56get it. If you want the top, no caveats, so transfers allowed, no bonus, no anything,
21:02it's Synergy Bank at 4.05%. Let's contrast that now to the top new customer only deal on normal
21:10savings, which is Chase, part of JP Morgan, big bank, bank account. You have to do a various bank
21:15account, but you don't have to switch to get it and there's no hard credit check. So it's pretty
21:19easy to open. That pays 4.5%. Big part of that is a newbie bonus at 2.25%. So you
21:25can see the rates
21:26aren't that different, but just let me bring up for a moment the impact of tax here. Okay. So if
21:33you're
21:34not paying tax on your savings, there is a difference 4.68% to 4.5%. But if you've used
21:40up all your savings allowances, in a cash ISA, if you're a basic rate taxpayer, you'd get 4.68%.
21:47But after tax, in the top normal savings, you'd only earn 3.6%. By the time we're getting to a
21:5440%
21:55rate taxpayer, well, you know, you're getting close to double the actual interest after tax
22:00that you would earn using a cash ISA to normal savings. And this is where cash ISAs really come
22:04into their own. If you're the type of person who's got enough money that you would be paying tax on
22:08savings outside of a cash ISA. More Best Buys. Top standard rate Coventry Building Society only
22:15lasts a year, maximum three withdrawals. Top no caveats, normal savings, DF Capital 4.2. I'm going
22:20to stand here and let the camera have a hard lock so you can read the fixes while I explain
22:23the
22:23difference on fixes. These are simpler products. Two things to note here. First of all,
22:29normal savings fixes pay more than fixed rate cash ISAs. So if you are not a taxpayer and not likely
22:38to pay tax on your savings interest, they will pay you more. If you are a taxpayer on your savings
22:43interest, you would be better with the cash ISAs. There's another advantage of fixed cash ISAs over
22:48normal savings though. Put money in here, your money is locked away for the term, the one year,
22:54two year or even longer. You cannot get the money out. But the ISA rules do not allow them to
23:00lock
23:01your money away in a fix. What they tend to say is, you can take your money out by closing
23:07the
23:07account down and we will charge you a withdrawal penalty of 90 or 180 or 365 days, depending on the
23:13length, worth of interest. So, not going to pay tax, these win. Going to pay tax, the cash ISAs win.
23:21Want to lock money away but slightly worried you might need access to it? Cash ISAs have an advantage
23:26because you will be able to get your money out if you need it. Okay. And those are the best
23:30buys.
23:31Okay. I should caveat, right now, by the end of tomorrow, I suspect there'll be some changes in
23:39those. That's how quickly it's moving in the ISA season. Just quickly, Martin, any other ISAs with
23:43deadlines? Yeah, look, there's junior ISAs up to £9,000 per tax year. You can put in for under 18s,
23:49locked away till their 18th birthday. With those, again, because you're putting the money,
23:52locking the money away for a long period, probably have a look at shares ISAs rather than cash ISAs
23:56for those. Hopefully, over that period, they will grow. There's the lifetime ISAs for first-time
24:01buyers or those who want to take the money out when they're over 60, where there's a 25% bonus
24:05on top,
24:06can only be opened between aged 18 and 39, and you've got to be buying a house worth under £450
24:12,000.
24:12A couple of non-ISA savings. If you're on Universal Credit and you work, check out the Help to Save,
24:17up to a 50% bonus you get there on up to £50 a month in. It's really worth checking
24:22that out.
24:22And also, if you're saving money regularly, there are these things called regular savers,
24:26often linked to bank accounts, where you can put £200, £300 a month in. The interest rates
24:30there can be up to 7%, so even after tax, they can be beating ISAs. Not eating them,
24:36beating them. You don't eat an ISA when it's a piece of cake. Jeanette.
24:40Thank you, Martin. Coming up in our final part is a big car finance update,
24:45plus £10 champagne. We'll see you in four.
25:00Welcome back. Just before the break, we were talking lifetime ISAs. Of course, remember,
25:04you only put money in a lifetime ISAs or as a first-time buyer if you're definitely going
25:07to buy a property under £450,000, especially because they're consulting on changing the rules
25:12to it. We'll do more on that in a future programme. Jeanette, what's going on?
25:15Well, I know we're talking ISAs today, but I've got this question for you, and it's coming
25:18from Tom now. Tom is asking, any more updates on car finance and when people can expect payouts?
25:24Seems to have been going on for ages now.
25:27Yeah, well, there is. There's been a big update. It happened last Wednesday,
25:30so just after last week's show, and I'm doing it in my news you can use.
25:36Okie dokie. Oh.
25:38We have three people there to report on what the FCA has said.
25:41OK. Right. So, car finance news. I've got a timing update, and there's a new tool available here.
25:47Last week, the regulator of the FCA said the car finance redress scheme details will definitely be
25:52announced this month. I would expect it at the very end of the month and probably at 5pm once the
25:56markets are closed. Once they announce that, there will be a three-month implementation period,
26:02five months for older car finance agreements. After that three or five months, so everything here is
26:08after three or five months. If you have already complained or complained by that point,
26:13the firm will tell you within three months of that under the redress scheme if and how much compensation
26:18you're due. You can then accept that, and if you choose to accept it, it will be paid within one
26:24month,
26:25which means if you have complained, you will probably get your payout this calendar year.
26:31If you haven't complained, if a firm thinks you were missold, within six months, it must ask and tell you
26:39whether it thinks you were missold. So, this is the big thing. This is a mass redress scheme.
26:43For once, they're actually going to have to look you up and say, oh, we think we got it wrong
26:47with you.
26:48We think you were missold. In that case, they've got six months to do it, and then you've got three
26:52months
26:52to respond, and then they've got one month to pay you. So, on that schedule, you'll probably get your money
26:56sometime in 2027. That's why complaining now, if you haven't already complained, will both make the
27:04process easier, because you know if you had it and they may not track you, so it's always safer if
27:09you know you've had car finance to do it, and a lot quicker. So, who's this for? If you have
27:13had a car,
27:14a van, a motorbike or camper van, PCP or HP finance, not leasing, between the 6th of April 2007
27:23and the 1st of November 2024, typically, the compensation we're expecting from the regulator scheme
27:29is £700. So, that's who should complain. And, perversely, all the different types of misselling,
27:37which I'm not going to go into now, all stem from one thing. Effectively, they got more commission
27:42or they did something that they did not disclose to you, which means there is no way for you to
27:48know
27:49if you were missold without complaining. So, perversely, to find out if you've got a complaint,
27:55complain. And there are free complaint tools online. You do not have to pay anyone to do this
27:59under the regulatory system. One of the things people have said to me, though, is I don't remember
28:04who my car finance company is. I don't have any of the details. I don't know what's going on.
28:08Well, actually, just out, there's a new car finance checker tool which will help you with that.
28:13You go to the free My Equifax app, and then you need to get its free basic account. If you're
28:19paying
28:19for this, you don't need to, so don't pay for this. And it will show you most of the agreements
28:24you have had since 2007. It's not every agreement, because not every firm use Equifax, which is one
28:29of the credit reference agencies, but most of them should be on there. You can't then complain through it,
28:33but you can then use those details to fill in one of the free complaint forms, which I think,
28:38I'm hoping that will make things a lot easier. I'd love your feedback. Get in touch with me on social
28:41media,
28:41your feedback on how you're finding that tool. Final note on this. This is the mass redress scheme.
28:48You could also choose to go to court. If you go to court, and if you win in court, you
28:54would likely
28:55get a bigger payout than the regulator scheme, but you'd probably need to pay somebody to go to court
29:01for you, which would take 30% of what you get. So it may well balance out. I'm focusing more
29:08of my
29:08attention on this scheme, mainly for this reason. That in this scheme, people who haven't complained
29:13will still get some money and will get paid out. And that's mass redress, and that means
29:18vulnerable people who aren't going to complain themselves will at least get some money in most
29:23cases. But that doesn't mean the court route is wrong. It's just a very different way to do it,
29:27and you probably have to be a bit more confident if you're going to do so.
29:29Some quickies, maybe?
29:30Yeah, let's do it. Right. Okay, a little bit easier, these. Stamp. First class stamps are rising
29:38£10p to £1.80 in second class, £4p to £91p on the 7th of April. Here's the rule, dead simple.
29:43If you bang a stamp that's not dated, it's got the monarch, so the king for new stamps, the late
29:47queen
29:47for old stamps on it, and it says first or second, it is valid in perpetuity. I've still got some
29:52from previous times, so if you're going to need stamps, you may as well buy them now before the price
29:55goes
29:55up. By the way, have any of you got big stocks of stamps from like 10 years ago that you've
29:59still
29:59got and you're still using? Get in touch and let us know on that one. Blue badge holders can now
30:04qualify for a disabled person's rail card, which is the third off fares. So if you have a blue badge
30:09or you have a disabled person's bus pass or you can't drive for medical reasons, that now counts
30:13as aware as being eligible. They're just simplifying the process. All the other old ways that you were
30:17eligible, all the different benefits that you could get, are still count, but this is just, if you've had
30:21the test for a blue badge, you don't need to go through the test again, the cheque for this one.
30:24It's 20 quid for a year or 54 pounds for three years. Funny one, this, if you use the code
30:30TOYS10 in Deliveroo app, you get £10 off 20 pounds spend at 44 The Entertainer shops. You'll have to
30:36check if your shop is in there. That's not all of the shops there. Free delivery on delivery orders
30:40over 15 quid, so you really probably want to be spending 25 pounds to get the £10 off for it
30:44to
30:44be 15 quid and it will work well for you. Just a cheap toys code and it's Mother's Day. So
30:49£10
30:50Mother's Day champagne at Asda till Sunday. Haven't got confirmation if it's in Scotland or not yet.
30:54Still waiting for that. It can of course be drunk for other purposes. It does not have to be drunk
30:58just on Mother's Day. It is Louvre Fontaine champagne brew, normally £22 in store and online. Of course,
31:05please be drink-aware. Cheers. Cheers indeed. Here's my water, I promise there's no champagne in that.
31:11This question is coming from Kate. Really interesting actually. Could you clarify what the total allowance
31:16is in the tax year you turn 18 please? Is it £9,000 before your 18th birthday and then the
31:21remaining
31:21£11,000 after 18th birthday until April the 5th?
31:26Kate, you have got me. I have not thought about that before. Okay. I believe the junior ISA
31:31regime up to £9,000 is an entirely separate regime to the ISA regime. So it is my belief
31:37that in a tax year you turned 18, you could put £9,000 in a junior ISA and then when
31:42you're
31:4218 you could put £20,000 in an adult ISA which means you could put £29,000 in an ISA
31:50in that year.
31:51I am 80% certain of that. I will need to go and check the ISA guidance for providers. That's
31:58the
31:58only place I think I can find it. I will put it on social media when I have a firm
32:01answer. I'm 80%
32:02but I will find it by the end of the week and I'll put it on my social media channels.
32:05Brilliant question, Kate. Thank you for that. Fantastic question from Kate. Right, that's it for this week. What about next
32:10week?
32:10Well, it's an ask me anything on the cost of living crisis driven on the back of the Middle East
32:14conflict.
32:15So if it's on energy bills or the nightmare people are having with home heating oil or petrol, do get
32:20in touch.
32:20I'll do my best to give you answers. Thank you to the brilliant crowd here, to Jeanette, to the team
32:24upstairs,
32:25for everybody who works on the show. See you next week. Get your questions in.
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