Q : My husband died recently and my solicitor has said that his investments have to be cashed in and the money paid into their client account. I was hoping that they could be transferred into my name, but apparently this is not so. Is this right?

A: The good news is that pretty much any investment can be transferred directly into your own name, although I am told by solicitor contacts that cashing in the investments may sometimes be a term of the will. There is generally no need to cash in any investments if you would prefer to continue to hold them.

Having checked your husband’s investments, they are all held in either Cash or Investment ISAs and since 2015 it has been possible to transfer these directly into an ISA in your own name. On your husband’s death, you became entitled to an “ additional permitted subscription” equal to the value of his ISAs on that date. Depending on how long it takes to settle the estate, any additional growth would have to be left outside the ISA for the moment however, this would still not entail selling the investments.

With the Investment ISAs, most providers, once they have registered your husband’s death on their systems, have a form which will allow you to simply swap his investments across into your own name. They put as much as allowed into your ISA and hold whatever is left in your name in whatever they call their general investment account. This is generally the simplest and easiest method.

If you preferred to cash them in then you could do so and would not lose your right to the “additional permitted subscription”. You could then reinvest cash up to the value of that subscription into a new ISA of your own choice provided the investment manager that you want to use will accept it – not all of them do.