Help to Buy ISA guide

eskbanker

Your £200 monthly HTB ISA contributions already come out of your £15,240 annual ISA allowance, so if you've been paying in every month then you don't have the full £15,240 2016/17 allowance left, it'll be more like £13,240.

You can't get any more into the HTB ISA (beyond the £200/month plus £1K initial) via any route so forget about that, your best bet will be to open regular savings or current accounts that'll give a better return on your money than (non-HTB) cash ISAs, see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/which-saving-account for details.

Cpt_Strangepork

My daughter started saving the max. £200/month into a htbISA last January (2016) however she missed some payments during the year due to insufficient income. Can she 'top up' missed months?

bowlhead99

Cpt_Strangepork wrote: »

she missed some payments during the year due to insufficient income. Can she 'top up' missed months?

No, she can only put in £200 during any month (except at the very start when she was allowed to put more in at account opening).

If she takes a month or two off, she can't have £400 or £600 in a later month.

If she's young enough to qualify for Lifetime ISA when they launch in a couple of months time, she can effectively do a bit of a catch up then because they will take £4000 of new money per year and it doesn't have to be exactly 333 per month it could be £2000 at once and then £0 then £50 then £500 then nothing for ages then £1450 on the last day to use up the rest of the allowance. The existing HTB contributions up to 5 Apr 2016 can also be transferred in without affecting the 2017/8 allowance.

Ed-1

Cpt_Strangepork wrote: »

My daughter started saving the max. £200/month into a htbISA last January (2016) however she missed some payments during the year due to insufficient income. Can she 'top up' missed months?

No............

serg85

Hi, as probably a few of us - I am still somewhat confused with regards to having both regular Cash and Help-to-buy ISAs at the same time. The Help-to-buy guidelines read that, if you have paid into a cash ISA in a given tax year, in order to open a Help-to-buy ISA, you will have to transfer your active cash ISA into it. Equally, if you haven't opened a new cash ISA, OR put any money into an existing cash ISA since 5 April of the given tax year, you can open Help-to-buy ISA.
In my situation, I opened a Help-to-buy ISA in February 2016 and already had a Cash ISA opened in the previous tax year. I then started to transfer amounts from Cash ISA into my current account in order to make the initial deposit and regular payments into the Help-to-buy ISA. I did also, however, made 1 small payment into the regular cash ISA in the same tax year.
Am I still eligible to have opened the Help-to-buy ISA in 2016 as I have been paying in regularly since? Or would I technically need to open a new one in April 2017 - at which point I am not sure how my current balance will be used? Would really appreciate your guidance here. Thank you!

eskbanker

You've broken the rules by paying into both a HTB ISA and a standard cash ISA in the same tax year, assuming they're not both with one of the few providers who offer split ISAs.

Given relative interest rates and the 25% HTB bonus, it'll make far more sense to get your 2016-17 contribution to the standard cash ISA out again to preserve the principle that all current tax year contributions must be in the same place - how much is in the standard cash ISA and how much of this did you pay in since 6 April 2016?

serg85

So sounds like I essentially lost the allowance for 2016/17 having made that one small payment into regular ISA back in October? I currently have about half of the annual limit in the regular ISA and have made the initial maximum deposit into HTB ISA in February 2016 as well as 12 regular payments of maximum amount (or 10 since 06 April 2016). What are the options now? As a note, these are 2 different providers, so no split. Thank you

serg85

£200 is in fact the maximum you can put in each month, hence you're able to put in less, if needed.

mhuk01

Hello,

I own a property (bought in 2015), and got married last year. Does my wife count as a first time buyer even though she is married to me? We have not added her to the mortgage or house deeds, in the hope that when the time comes for us to purchase our next home she can get the help to buy isa bonus...

badger09

mhuk01 wrote: »

Hello,

I own a property (bought in 2015), and got married last year. Does my wife count as a first time buyer even though she is married to me? We have not added her to the mortgage or house deeds, in the hope that when the time comes for us to purchase our next home she can get the help to buy isa bonus...

Sounds like it.

Have a read of the eligibility criteria

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