LISA - I got caught out by 'Help to buy' interest

[quote=[Deleted User];discussion/5775856]I am having trouble with a transfer from my current 'Help to Buy' ISA provider to my Cash LISA (Cash Lifetime ISA) because interest gained on the payments made during this tax year. Please see quote below. If I have read this incorrectly, please correct me.

The exact wording on one of Skipton's form is:


Here is my question, I have put in £2,200 into my lifetime ISA and I have put in £1,800 into my help to buy isa this tax year. With interest on the £1,800, this will push me over the £4,000 limit and therefore my transfer will be sent back.

[I believe] if I remove £50 from my 'help to buy' isa, which I believe will be enough to cover the interested, it will be not counted as this year payment amount. but pre-tax year capital.
[I believe] after talking to Skipton that I cannot remove capital from the LISA after it has gone in, so no way of fixing it that way.

I am not sure what to do, apart from being more careful next time. If you have any ideas please let me know.[/QUOTE]

You can transfer previous year money from the H2B ISA as a formal ISA transfer into the LISA by stating you don't want to transfer current year subscriptions and then when you know how much space you have in this year's £4k allowance, you can top it up directly.

throwaway12345 wrote: »

So say I have £5886.45 in my Halifax Help to Buy ISA and £1 in my Skipton LISA.

With the Halifax account £86.45 is interest added Feb '17. Then £2000 has been added this tax year (so £3800 + the interest were in the 16/17 tax year). Does that mean I want to transfer ).

Does that mean the best way to do it is to use the transfer process to send over that £3800, then separately add £4k to the LISA for this year... then to keep adding to the Help to Buy ISA/take the money out and put it into the LISA next year?

Pretty much, yes.