Help to Buy ISA guide

eskbanker

wallofbeans wrote: »

But somebody else pointed out to me wording on the government Help To Buy ISA website -

“2. do not own, and never have owned any interest in land, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere,.......
(C) (i) which I acquired as a purchaser by way of sole or joint ownership; or
(ii) which entitles me to possess or occupy that land.”

(https://www.helptobuy.gov.uk/documents/2015/12/eligibility-of-ftbs.pdf)

- and wondered whether "entitles me to possess or occupy that land" counts me out?

It's very confusing and I wondered if someone here could clarify, and possibly adjust the MSE guide to make it clearer.

I don't share your confusion, it looks clear to me - the entitlement clause (C)(ii) is conditional on the primary ownership one, so if you haven't owned any interest in land then there's no issue.

If you take out some of the middle words, without changing the fundamental meaning, it should be clearer: I do not own, and never have owned any interest in land which entitles me to possess or occupy that land.

wallofbeans

eskbanker wrote: »

I don't share your confusion, it looks clear to me - the entitlement clause (C)(ii) is conditional on the primary ownership one, so if you haven't owned any interest in land then there's no issue.

If you take out some of the middle words, without changing the fundamental meaning, it should be clearer: I do not own, and never have owned any interest in land which entitles me to possess or occupy that land.

Ah. OK. I was thinking that it meant that being married and having lived in the house my wife owns for a number of years might mean they think I am entitled to possess or occupy it.

andrewm8173

Hi everyone!

I opened a help to buy ISA with HBOS in February of this year. I didn't take advantage of the £1200 initial deposit and therefore quite far behind. I have recently changed bank to barclays and would like to start up an help to buy ISA with them. Is it possible to close my HBOS ISA and open a new help to buy ISA with barclays straight away and put in a bigger deposit.
Its also for the convenience of having all my accounts with the same company rather than split over 2 banks.

Thank you in advance!!

sallyhastings

Hi all

this is my first post in a forum, but i cannot find anywhere on the government website or Martins fact sheet that gives this info.

We have a help to buy ISA in my husbands name because i already own a house.
We are currently in the process of purchasing a house in both our names, but it is just over the threshold at £260,000 so we miss out on the government assistance unfortunately.

What i want to know is can we keep using the ISA as a savings account as it is still a higher rate of interest.
We already have linked 6% savings, so this is the next best option.

or do we need to close the account because my husband is a house owner now?

thanks

kittyjo82

Hi,

Hope someone on here can help me with this.

My husband and I are in the process of purchasing a house and both have a Help to Buy ISA each.
We planned to use this with the bonus as well as some money being gifted to us from my parents to cover the deposit.
Now I understand we can't use the bonus part from our ISAs (which comes to £900) to use towards the deposit. So we are a bit confused as to what it's used for then? Whats the difference between a home deposit and a mortgage deposit?
We have our mortgage in principle and the lender were aware of our Help to Buy ISAs but made no mention of deducting the bonus off how much of the mortgage we'd need to apply for. I feel a bit unsure of next steps now. Solicitors aren't being very clear on explaining it all. I feel now our deposit will be short now and the mortgage in principle invalid.

Any help on this would be great.

eskbanker

andrewm8173 wrote: »

I opened a help to buy ISA with HBOS in February of this year. I didn't take advantage of the £1200 initial deposit and therefore quite far behind. I have recently changed bank to barclays and would like to start up an help to buy ISA with them. Is it possible to close my HBOS ISA and open a new help to buy ISA with barclays straight away and put in a bigger deposit

You have two choices - you can either transfer your existing funds to another provider (which doesn't allow you to put in a lump sum of £1,200), or you can close and restart (which wouldn't allow the reuse of your existing contributions), so the recommendation would depend on how much you've accumulated so far, as well as respective interest rates, etc.

See https://www.helptobuy.gov.uk/help-to-buy-isa/faq/:

If I close my account, can I open a new Help to Buy: ISA?
If you hold a Help to Buy: ISA, and close it without claiming your government bonus, you can open a new account.

If I transfer my Help to Buy: ISA to another bank or building society, can I put in the maximum initial deposit of £1,200 again?
No. You can transfer your Help to Buy: ISA to a different bank or building society, but your allowances will stay the same. So, even if you did not put in the full £1,200 when you first opened your Help to Buy: ISA, you will not be able to deposit more than your monthly allowance of up to £200.

eskbanker

sallyhastings wrote: »

We have a help to buy ISA in my husbands name because i already own a house.
We are currently in the process of purchasing a house in both our names, but it is just over the threshold at £260,000 so we miss out on the government assistance unfortunately.

What i want to know is can we keep using the ISA as a savings account as it is still a higher rate of interest.

See posts #1094 and #1095 above for the same question and an answer!

eskbanker

kittyjo82 wrote: »

Whats the difference between a home deposit and a mortgage deposit?

Although I don't think they're defined terms in particularly common usage, they're being used to try to explain that the word 'deposit' by itself is too ambiguous when it comes to HTB ISAs.

A home deposit is what's paid in advance at exchange of contracts to secure a property.

A mortgage deposit is the difference between the total purchase price and the mortgage, i.e. the amount of equity a buyer is contributing to the purchase.

The HTB ISA bonus can be used towards the latter but not the former.

kittyjo82

this is the same issue I've had. I had no idea we couldnt use it towards the deposit and so have been left reeling as to what we need to do now.

kittyjo82

ok so, I've paid £250 reservation fee. That the same as a home deposit? I get this money back. Deposit we need is £7,600. and with £3,100 coming from my dad and £3600 saved in two helptobuyisas, we should be able to use the £900 bonus towards the mortgage deposit then?.