Help to Buy ISA guide

colinmk

masonic wrote: »

Who is the "we" that is gaining independence? The UK is almost certainly gaining independence, but that will have no effect. There is a small amount of speculation about Scotland wanting another independence referendum, but that is far from likely at the moment. If Scotland were to become independent, then under the current rules of the scheme, to qualify for the HTB ISA bonus you would need to buy a property in the UK and intend to live there.

Hi,
We in this case, is Scotland. I expect us to become indpendent in the next few years as the current trajectory suggests. Thanks for the advice, if that is the rules I assume the bonus would not be honoured under independence then. It will be a question I pose to the potential building society and see what they say too.

eskbanker

colinmk wrote: »

Hi,
We in this case, is Scotland. I expect us to become indpendent in the next few years as the current trajectory suggests. Thanks for the advice, if that is the rules I assume the bonus would not be honoured under independence then. It will be a question I pose to the potential building society and see what they say too.

To be honest you'd be completely wasting your time, how could any financial institution, large or small, be expected to give a meaningful answer to that?!

It's not even a done deal that there will actually be a second Scottish independence referendum, so it's way too early to be expecting definitive positions on detailed questions about the impact of independence on what is essentially a trivial side issue in the general scheme of things, given the lack of clarity on fundamentals like which currency Scotland would use for example.

Tricky1234

Hi
If the exchange falls through and you dont use the money or bonus from the HTB ISA after you have closed the account. Can you open another one starting from scratch again and use the bonus from both?

kind regards
Richard

eskbanker

You basically pick up where you left off, see https://www.helptobuy.gov.uk/help-to-buy-isa/faq/:

What happens if my house purchase does not go ahead?
If your property purchase doesn’t go through, after you have claimed your bonus, you can re-open your Help to Buy: ISA. Your solicitor or conveyancer will return your bonus to the government, and give you a document (called a purchase failure notification) confirming your property purchase did not complete. If you take this to your bank or building society, they will re-open your account for you. At this point, you will be able to deposit your money as a lump sum. So, if you closed your account with £12,000 in it, you will be able to re-deposit £12,000.

If you decide not to re-open a Help to Buy: ISA, you can use your purchase failure notification to deposit your lump sum in a cash or stocks and shares ISA. This will not count towards your annual ISA subscription limit. However, if you do put your money into a cash or stocks and shares ISA, you won’t qualify for a government bonus if you later use the money to buy a home.

hennerz

Is it possible to fund the £200 monthly payments into a HTB ISA using money from a previous year's allowance by transferring from an old S&S ISA? I have used all my current years ISA allowance already and can't split that.

colsten

On the transfer form, you can specify whether any of the current year's money should be transferred (and if yes, all of it needs to be transferred). If you don't transfer any current year's money, by definition you are transferring previous year's money.

You will still, however, face the issue that providers might be unwilling to transfer £200 every month, and you have no guarantee that your transfers would actually be completed within the calendar month you request them for.

If you can't wait until the new tax year, you could look into opening a normal cash ISA with a split ISA provider like Nationwide. You could then request a one-off transfer of "old" money into that ISA, enough to feed your HTB ISA until the next tax year. Once the money is in the cash ISA, open the HTB ISA, and you should be able to move the money manually yourself from the cash ISA to the HTB ISA. You must, however, confirm with the split ISA provider that you are allowed to move the money manually - they may or may not offer that facility.

lcfcstephen

Hi all,

I am currently in the process of buying a house which is due to complete in a month! Should I email my solicitors to see when they recommend closing my Help to Buy ISA (I hadn't realised I needed to do this before now, so thank you for comment stating as such!)
I have also just got married, but my wife doesn't have a job so she isn't on the mortgage. She has a help to buy ISA, can we use that when we remortgage? Or will we have to do it when we buy a new property?
Also if/when we remortgage can we effectively pay off the 25% Help to Buy Loan as its a new build then, or do we have to pay it seperately?

hennerz

colsten wrote: »

On the transfer form, you can specify whether any of the current year's money should be transferred (and if yes, all of it needs to be transferred). If you don't transfer any current year's money, by definition you are transferring previous year's money.

You will still, however, face the issue that providers might be unwilling to transfer £200 every month, and you have no guarantee that your transfers would actually be completed within the calendar month you request them for.

If you can't wait until the new tax year, you could look into opening a normal cash ISA with a split ISA provider like Nationwide. You could then request a one-off transfer of "old" money into that ISA, enough to feed your HTB ISA until the next tax year. Once the money is in the cash ISA, open the HTB ISA, and you should be able to move the money manually yourself from the cash ISA to the HTB ISA. You must, however, confirm with the split ISA provider that you are allowed to move the money manually - they may or may not offer that facility.

Thanks, that's a great idea.

Process:
- Open Split-able Cash ISA with Nationwide
- Transfer in £2600 to Cash ISA from S&S ISA on iWeb (14/15 allowance)
- Move £1200 over to Help To Buy ISA
- Move £200 each month into HTB for 7 months (if possible).

Only issue is if Nationwide make me deposit £1 to open the Cash ISA...

badger09

hennerz wrote: »

Thanks, that's a great idea.

Process:
- Open Split-able Cash ISA with Nationwide
- Transfer in £2600 to Cash ISA from S&S ISA on iWeb (14/15 allowance)
- Move £1200 over to Help To Buy ISA
- Move £200 each month into HTB for 7 months (if possible).

Only issue is if Nationwide make me deposit £1 to open the Cash ISA...

They won't, if all you want to do is xfer from an existing ISA.

colsten

hennerz wrote: »

Only issue is if Nationwide make me deposit £1 to open the Cash ISA...

They probably do if you open it online but you should be able do apply in Branch with just a transfer-in. I have done this before.

Before starting the ball rolling, I'd also first check whether Nationwide will allow you to move cash from the cash ISA to the HTB ISA.