Help to Buy ISA guide

Jlabriola

great article, very useful

Ange1985

Fantastic thread which has cleared up most of my questions. The only remaining question I have is ref the purchase or value limit of £250k. Both me and OH are first time buyers and have tracked a property on the market since early last year. It has dropped from £285k to £260k, the eastate agent has alluded that the guide price is £250k. My question is if we can get the purchase price down to £249999 (I think we stand a good chance) would it matter if the property value is higher? We both have well established Halifax HTB ISAs and the government bonus would help a long way to securing a better rate (we are sitting between 90% and 80% LTV. any clarification of if we are faced with purchase or valuation upper limit would help massively. TIA Ange :-)

masonic

Ange1985 wrote: »

My question is if we can get the purchase price down to £249999 (I think we stand a good chance) would it matter if the property value is higher?

The guide price is not the value of the property. The value of the property is irrelevant anyway. The rules state that the property must have a purchase price of up to £250,000. "Up to" would include exactly £250,000.

ourproject

Hi,

Tax Year 2015 - 2016:

1. Opened up HELP2BUY on December 2015.
2. Did not contribute to my regular cash ISA.

Tax Year 2016 - 2017 (This current FY):

3. Still contributing to my HELP2BUY
4. No other contributions to my regular cash ISA

QUESTIONS:

Can I contribute 15,400 for this year or am I not allowed because I am contributing £200 per month towards my HELP2BUY?

Basically, what can I do before April 6th 2017.

Many thanks

masonic

ourproject wrote: »

Can I contribute 15,400 for this year or am I not allowed because I am contributing £200 per month towards my HELP2BUY?

Basically, what can I do before April 6th 2017.

The H2B ISA is a cash ISA, so the only way you could contribute to another cash ISA is if you used a split-ISA provider, such as Nationwide. You could contribute to a S&S ISA or an IF ISA.

Ed-1

ourproject wrote: »

Hi,

Tax Year 2015 - 2016:

1. Opened up HELP2BUY on December 2015.
2. Did not contribute to my regular cash ISA.

Tax Year 2016 - 2017 (This current FY):

3. Still contributing to my HELP2BUY
4. No other contributions to my regular cash ISA

QUESTIONS:

Can I contribute 15,400 for this year or am I not allowed because I am contributing £200 per month towards my HELP2BUY?

Basically, what can I do before April 6th 2017.

Many thanks

You couldn't contribute £15,400 anyway as the allowance is £15,240 until April when it rises to £20,000.

gssaggu1

Quick query (apologies if similar question has been asked)

I’ve opened a Help-to-Buy ISA today. I intend to open a LISA in April.

From April am I allowed to continue depositing £200 into the Help-to-Buy ISA and also open up a LISA?

I know the annual limit of £4000 exists for the LISA (£4000/12=£333.33 monthly); would this be allowed?

LISA April £1 open / or £333.33
LISA May £333.33
LISA Jun £333.33
etc.

Whilst also doing

Help-to-Buy March £1200
Help-to-Buy April £200
Help-to-Buy May £200
etc..

I think I’ve been lead to believe that if I open the LISA, then the Help-to-Buy is redundant as the LISA is viewed as my active ISA for the financial year.

Would be very grateful for any advice

masonic

gssaggu1 wrote: »

I think I’ve been lead to believe that if I open the LISA, then the Help-to-Buy is redundant as the LISA is viewed as my active ISA for the financial year.

Nope, they are different types of ISA and you can continue contributing to both. So you can make the monthly contributions you suggest but if you wanted to transfer your HTB ISA into your LISA, then you would need to make sure your contributions between the two accounts in the next tax year did not exceed £4000 in total.

jess1808

Maybe a stupid question but I've had the Halifax Help to buy ISA for over a year now so I've still got a better rate than most (3.5%), but I've just realised that as the interest is paid annually and we're hoping to buy a house in the next year it will be before the date we would get interest, I just wanted to check they don't pay what you've gained so far in interest on closing the account?

masonic

jess1808 wrote: »

Maybe a stupid question but I've had the Halifax Help to buy ISA for over a year now so I've still got a better rate than most (3.5%), but I've just realised that as the interest is paid annually and we're hoping to buy a house in the next year it will be before the date we would get interest, I just wanted to check they don't pay what you've gained so far in interest on closing the account?

Accrued interest will be paid at closure.