How to sell shares?

[Barrenfieldoffucks]

I have a few shares that were given to me as a child. Nothing life changing, a few hundred quid's worth of national grid shares. I'm thinking of selling them, how do I go about it? Googling gives me quite complicated results.

If you have an ISA, ask them if you can lodge them in with your ISA. They will tell you what to do. Otherwise, contact your high street bank. They will give you poor rates but it is the easiest way for someone with no interest or knowledge of stocks and shares. It's not actually that easy on the UK. There are high street stock brokers like Hargreaves Landsdown, Killick & Co etc. You could go talk to them.

Second the advice to talk to your bank. The big ones have departments that handle share dealing for customers. If they can't do it, they'll be able to tell you who can.

Are you registered with the national grid shareholders portal online? You need the investor number that should be on the certificate. If the certificates are old, and if you've changed your address, you will need to contact them to get an updated certificate. I expect they have a helpline and will deal with this all the time.

Then once you're online I expect there will be an online option to sell your shares, for which they will charge a fee. The process is likely to be to agree a sale online, send them the certificates, then they'll send you a cheque or do a payment to your bank account.

I sold some childhood shares last year (not national grid) it'll be a bit of admin but actually quite straightforward

Thanks all, I'll do some more research

If you walk into a bank with a share cert to sell it, the chances are you will get fleeced with their criminal and excessive charges.

You could open a share dealing account and lodge the cert there. If its only a small amount of shares why not just keep them and tuck the cert away .NG pay good divis and with any luck ,in 10/20 years time they will be worth much more. Think of them as a family inheritance to be passed on ?

I've never had any dividends etc, am I meant to?

www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/n/national-grid-ord-12,-204473p

Indeed you are ! Who gave you the shares? The dividends are paid twice a year eaither into a nominated bank account or by cheque to the shareholders registered address. You need to get in touch with the administrators at www.nationalgridshareholders.com

Does the certificate have YOUR name on it?

It does, I don't even know who bought them for me...a grandmother I'm assuming. I updated my name when we got married etc, but that's about it. I just tried registering online and it couldn't do it so need to phone, perhaps because it's an old certificate.

If they paid they'll retro that's be awesome 😂

That was meant to say, if they paid them retrospectively 😂

Great news,,i am a long term NG holder and i think there have been several reorganisations but you could be in for some back pay. They will likely send you a new cert if it all works out. There may be a security issue as all documentation and possibly cheques will have been going to the address registered for you. Im guessing youve moved house since then. Lets hope no one has attempted any kind of fraud. Ring them tomorrow and sort it. Hope it works out ok and you get some £££. I;d hang on to them.

Thanks, I probably will. Seems silly not to. I don't know where the dividends have gone... I've owned then since a child and never seen anything. 🤷

££££££££££££££££

If you haven't been receiving the dividends then it's quite likely that the dividends have been automatically reinvested. This means you'll have many more shares than your actual certificate states.
The share price today is £8.67 (assuming they're uk shares) although they were over £12 in 2016. Last year the dividend paid was 45.93 pence per share.

shares.telegraph.co.uk/fundamentals/?epic=NG.

It looks like the shares are registered with Equiniti, so you would be able to contact them to find out your current holding, and also sell them if you want to.

Hopefully you could find that you have a nice little nest egg!

I tried to register online today but there was an issue, the helpline couldn't help. So they said to send them screenshots and they'll sort it. I think the dividends will have been reinvested, he said when we were doing the security checks that the number of shares I thought I had didn't match what he could see so that would make sense.

Oh Good news about the divi being reinvested!

The mismatch in numbers is likely to be due to the several internal financial reorganisations which have occurred over the years leading to issuance of new share certs.

Yes, I got access today and there have been some changes, an old set shifted to a new set etc.

According the dividends bit they paid me one in 2011, but I never saw it. Then a few showing as 'outstanding' and a couple as cancelled. Only going back to 2011 though. Have emailed for further info.