Flexible ISA

The Flexible ISA is a type of Individual Savings Account which allows tax-free investments to be made, subject to qualifying conditions laid down by HMRC regulations.

Our Flexible ISA takes advantage of the HMRC flexibility rules which allow you to access your money, should you need it, and subsequently reinvest in the same tax year without losing your ISA allowance.

The eligibility rules to open a Flexible ISA require that:

• you are aged between 18 or over, and
• you are resident in the UK, or a Crown employee (or their spouse/civil partner) working overseas.

You cannot hold a Flexible ISA with, or on behalf of, someone else.

You can make contributions into this ISA up to the HMRC ISA contribution limit in each tax year. The current limit can be found in our Contribution Limits page.

However, if you have more than one type of ISA the limit applies to all contributions. It is anticipated that this limit will increase each year in line with Inflation.

The minimum contribution is £25 per month or an initial lump sum of £250, and contributions can be stopped or changed at any time without penalty.

You can split your ISA allowance for a tax year across the different types of ISA, but you can only open one of each type in the tax year.

For example, you could:

• Invest £10,000 in a Stocks and Shares ISA
• Invest £4,000 in a Lifetime ISA;
• Invest £6,000 in a Cash ISA; and

Your Flexible ISA does not close when the tax year ends, you can choose to continue investing in the account or open another. Either way your savings will retain their tax-free basis for as long as you keep them in your Flexible ISA.

The Flexible ISA also takes advantage of current HMRC regulations, allowing you to withdraw funds without losing any of your tax free ISA allowance for the current tax year.

Flexibility provides you with the facility to take money out of your ISA at any point, subject to the criteria detailed in section 6 of the Terms & Conditions, and re-invest it in the same tax year (by 5 April), without it reducing your current year‘s tax free ISA allowance.

The following example helps to explain flexibility in practice:

You have £40,000 in your ISA which is made up of £35,000 from previous years investments and £5,000 from money deposited in the current tax year, allowing for a further investment of up to £15,000 using the current year‘s ISA allowance. Flexibility means you could withdraw £10,000, which would then enable you to invest a further £25,000 in this tax year: the £10,000 you took out, plus the remaining £15,000 allowance.

The maximum you can subscribe to the Stocks & Shares Flexible ISA in a tax year is dependent upon the contribution limit - or 'ISA Allowance' - set by HMRC for that tax year. The current limit can be found in the Contribution Limits page. 

The minimum contribution is £25 per month or an initial lump sum of £250, and contributions can be stopped or changed at any time without penalty.

Contributions can be made in a number of ways;

• regular monthly payments by direct debit or standing order
• payments by cheque - made payable to ‘Unity Mutual’ with your name and ISA number on the back
• payments by direct money transfer - ensuring your ISA number is quoted in the transfer

The minimum additional contribution is £25, and contributions can be stopped or changed at any time without penalty.

The money is invested in the Unity Mutual Equity Fund. The investment objective of this Fund is to track the capital performance of the UK stock market by investing in over 600 UK companies. As the Fund’s investments are spread across a wide range of companies, the risk of it being affected by a single underperforming company or sector is reduced.

The contributions you pay are used to purchase units in the Fund (refer to section ‘4. Investment’ within the Terms and Conditions).

The investment performance of the Unity Mutual Equity Fund will determine the value of your ISA.