Help to Buy ISA guide

Snaaap

Wondering if anyone understand's Halifax's Help To Buy ISA rule about payments needing to be received before the 25th.

"You can pay in up to £200 in any calendar month. This should be paid by standing order and received by the 25th of the month (this can include the month you open your ISA)"

It's confusing as they explicitly mention calendar month, otherwise I might have understood that to mean the 25th is the start/end of their month.

I get paid on the 25th and would like to set up my SO to go out on the 25th, but if that's a weekend it will be delayed and fall into this limbo period. What happens to payments received between 25th and end of month?

badger09

Snaaap wrote: »

Wondering if anyone understand's Halifax's Help To Buy ISA rule about payments needing to be received before the 25th.

"You can pay in up to £200 in any calendar month. This should be paid by standing order and received by the 25th of the month (this can include the month you open your ISA)"

It's confusing as they explicitly mention calendar month, otherwise I might have understood that to mean the 25th is the start/end of their month.

I get paid on the 25th and would like to set up my SO to go out on the 25th, but if that's a weekend it will be delayed and fall into this limbo period. What happens to payments received between 25th and end of month?

I think Halifax, and some other banks, insist on SOs being paid by 25th of the month so that there is never any question of a long weekend/bank holiday delaying the payment. In other words, to avoid the situation you outline where a monthly payment is missed.

Snaaap

badger09 wrote: »

I think Halifax, and some other banks, insist on SOs being paid by 25th of the month so that there is never any question of a long weekend/bank holiday delaying the payment. In other words, to avoid the situation you outline where a monthly payment is missed.

Thanks for your reply. Their approach doesn't make sense to me. They should only be interested in when the payment is _received_, which should be by the end of the month (obviously, in order to count as a payment in that month). The responsibility for making sure payments are received by then should be with the payer. If they receive it on the 29th, what's the problem? Sure, if someone tries to _pay_ on the 29th and, due to weekends etc., it's delayed to the next month, that's a problem, but not Halifax's. And I can't think of a situation - not a 4 day bank holiday weekend or a short February month - where a targeted payment date of 25th would be delayed to the next month.

Sorry for the rant. Obviously you have no control over it! Originally I wasn't too interested in the why, but in what would happen to 'late' payments. I asked here because I couldn't not get an answer from their online chat. Fortunately someone on the phone eventually helped. The payment would just be rejected, apparently.

eskbanker

While not addressing your concern about the underlying issue and its rationale, why don't you just set the SO up to be on the 1st of each month instead?

It's not quite clear from your posts above how/when you're currently funding it if you already have one but are only now thinking about scheduling a SO, but if you shift to payments early in the month instead of late you may even be able to squeeze an extra one in before buying!

Snaaap

eskbanker wrote: »

While not addressing your concern about the underlying issue and its rationale, why don't you just set the SO up to be on the 1st of each month instead?

It's not quite clear from your posts above how/when you're currently funding it if you already have one but are only now thinking about scheduling a SO, but if you shift to payments early in the month instead of late you may even be able to squeeze an extra one in before buying!

Hi, thanks for taking an interest! Yep, I've been paying into it on the 1st since shortly after I opened it a year ago. It's just that I've been reviewing my finances lately and was hoping to bring this outgoing into line with a lot of other fixed outgoings I have. I like to know where I am in terms of disposable income immediately on pay day (or as close as possible). The 1st will have to do

zb215delay

Hi

Posted on a different board before realising this specific ISA thread was here.

We are trying to buy a house with two.individual H2B ISAs which we have had open since the scheme began. We are due a bonus of approx £2200 and are having valuation survey done today.

We didn't realise there was a price cap and are 1k over the limit. Has anybody else had an experience like this?

Did you try to renegotiate with seller?

eskbanker

The price cap has been a well-publicised aspect of HTB from day one and in itself is non-negotiable, so you'll need to discuss with your conveyancer how to work within the rules without wasting the opportunity of the bonus, which would depend on getting the purchase value down.

badger09

zb215delay wrote: »

Hi

Posted on a different board before realising this specific ISA thread was here.

We are trying to buy a house with two.individual H2B ISAs which we have had open since the scheme began. We are due a bonus of approx £2200 and are having valuation survey done today.

We didn't realise there was a price cap and are 1k over the limit. Has anybody else had an experience like this?

Did you try to renegotiate with seller?

If it is a relatively small amount say £1k or £2k, and the vendors are leaving things like carpets, curtains etc, you could ask if you can pay for those separately. That would bring the purchase price down to within the cap.

Listless_2

Hi all,

I need some advice. I'm about to sign contracts with a small conveyance firm. When they sent me the bill including deposit etc I said to them I had a Help to Buy ISA which I intended to use towards the final purchase.

They have refused to claim the bonus for me as they 'don't do it'. They are regulated by several governing bodies but won't budge even when I suggested paying them the admin fee outlined in the scheme. Everybody else I've spoken to doesn't understand why they are refusing. They insist that I should have stipulated at the start I had the ISA and intended to use it as they would have told me then they don't offer that service.

I'm now in a dilemma of proceeding with the transaction and exchange w/o getting my bonus of around £1000 or pulling out, incurring their legal costs and finding another conveyancer to start the process all over again. This would take weeks and cost me another sizable amount of money. :mad:

eskbanker

Unfortunately your last paragraph is an accurate summary of your options at this stage, so you'll need to weigh up the sums and timescales involved.

To participate in the HTB scheme, conveyancers need to jump through various admin hoops but you can't force them if they're not interested, it's not compulsory for all conveyancers to do it. Best not spend more time on why they're adopting the stance they are and just move on, frustrating and expensive though that may be.