Lifetime ISA - age discrimination

MARTYM8` wrote: »

67 in my case – or probably never given our inability to live within our means as a nation!

Shouldn’t we really be asking why we need these schemes – crazily high house prices in London and the south east.

This story was in the Telegraph yesterday. The real problem is not of course that this doctor and accountant can only afford 45% of a flat in a less than desirable part of inner London – no their inability to get their hands on their £1,400 help to buy isa is the problem?!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/a-slap-in-the-face-buyers-lose-1400-in-latest-help-to-buy-failur/

Well I'm getting my sp so that's okay!

High house prices. Blame low interest rates.

The simplest way to reduce house prices overnight is to increase interest rates to say 10%. This was the norm in the 80's or thereabouts

Cheers fj

ArmyDilllo wrote: »

Someone's able to exploit up to £1,000.00 of my taxes on top of their pension bonus and get it back tax-free.
Why can't I, a 56 year old coming up to retirement age, receive the same benefit?
I'm not a first-time buyer but I could have still used the retirement feature (I actually just retired last month).
It IS ageist.

Well, you have already had the chance to plan for your retirement for the last 40 years of adulthood and have made good enough plans that you were able to retire already. So, you probably don't need a £1k handout.

The £1k on the table is something that they could get given in April 2018 as a result of investing next April 2017, but can only access with freedom from April 2037 at the bare minimum, assuming they are waiting to age 60 while currently being under 40. It's not like they are handed free money to blow today.

Meanwhile you could put £4k in a pension today, have government gross it up to £5k, and draw that out (only 75% taxable) whenever you like. I can't do that because I'm not old enough to access my personal pensions today, and nobody currently aged under 40 would be able to access their personal pensions as young as age 56 (if private pension access continues to trail state pension access by a decade).

So, there are "ageist" things working in your favour too.

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

Also ww2 must've had an effect on reducing housing demand by reducing the population, and that has now worn off

But why release an ageist product that helps the young save for home buying or retirement when you could just lower house prices by thinning out the population again with a ww3? Seems a bit unfair.

If we had a ww3 with involuntary conscription for all under 40, we could reduce the numbers of people under 40 needing to grow their retirement pot.

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

I think there might be a sense that the younger generation had it harder with the housing market, as the low rates allow prices to rise and most youngsters don't have an s&s isa, so struggle to save against house price inflation with only cash

Also ww2 must've had an effect on reducing housing demand by reducing the population, and that has now worn off

I never had the chance to have an ISA when I was a youngster, how unfair is that! All I had was high interest rates, high inflation, high unemployment, low wages, ........Youngsters today all have it so easy, trouble is they want it all now! They want their forever detached house now, a new car, a high paying job and so on..

Kids, wise up, you start at the bottom, you buy a house you can afford, may be miles away from a 'nice' area, you decline rip off loans, you don't need an iPhone 7, Netflix, Amazon Prime, gym membership. And so on. At work, you work your way up, you will be paid below the national average because you know nothing, learn your job, get promoted, earn more and so on.

Good luck fj