Help to Buy ISA guide

dekkard

Hi, I have around £18k in a Help to Buy ISA and plan to transfer around £6k of that into a new regular cash ISA when the new tax year starts. (Leaving £12k in the HTB ISA for when I want to use it.)

Is anyone aware of any ISA rules that say I can't do this? Thanks.

eskbanker

dekkard said:

Hi, I have around £18k in a Help to Buy ISA and plan to transfer around £6k of that into a new regular cash ISA when the new tax year starts. (Leaving £12k in the HTB ISA for when I want to use it.)

Is anyone aware of any ISA rules that say I can't do this? Thanks.

Nothing stopping you from doing that, as long as you only pay new money into no more than one ISA of each type in any tax year (bearing in mind that HTB is a subset of cash ISA, i.e. the same type).

With hindsight it would probably have made sense to move from HTB to LISA earlier on - it'll take a few years to do from here though so is unlikely to be worth it unless you're buying in several years time.

masonic

dekkard said:

Is anyone aware of any ISA rules that say I can't do this? Thanks.

No ISA rules, but there may be a provider restriction preventing partial transfers from your specific HTB ISA. Check the T&C.

john8solo

Hi all, I've just reached the 12k threshold on my Help to Buy isa with Barclays. It's just now that I'm finding a lack of information as to what to do next!? I've called Barclays and I'm not totally convinced by what they said in reply to my questions.

1. Do i keep paying the £200pm max, or do i need to pay a minimum to keep the account open? They said i don't have to pay anything now. I can stop the DD payments. The account will stay open by leaving the money there until my solicitor applies for it when we finally buy our 1st house. 

2. What will the interest rate be now the account has gone above 12k? 
(Eg: HSBC is 0.65%) After a long wait, the best answer they could find is that the rate is variable. Natwest is 0.55 atm. So i imagine Barclays rate will be around the same. 

(Why keep paying £200pm at 0.65%, when i can pay that money into my Chase account at 2.7%). 

Hope this helps and pls let me know if this info is wrong at all? 

eskbanker

john8solo said:

1. Do i keep paying the £200pm max, or do i need to pay a minimum to keep the account open? They said i don't have to pay anything now. I can stop the DD payments. The account will stay open by leaving the money there until my solicitor applies for it when we finally buy our 1st house.

Although Barclays have been known to give out false information about ISAs before, I can't see any reason to doubt them here, but the best bet is to read the account Ts & Cs, where there doesn't appear to be any mention of minimum monthly or annual funding.

john8solo said:

2. What will the interest rate be now the account has gone above 12k? 
(Eg: HSBC is 0.65%) After a long wait, the best answer they could find is that the rate is variable. Natwest is 0.55 atm. So i imagine Barclays rate will be around the same.

No point in imagining answers (and researching rates available elsewhere!), when the actual answer to this is also published online - https://www.barclays.co.uk/savings/interest-rates/help-to-buy-isa/ states that the interest is 1.81% AER from £1 upwards, rather than being tiered at £12K like some.

dekkard

john8solo said:

Hi all, I've just reached the 12k threshold on my Help to Buy isa with Barclays. It's just now that I'm finding a lack of information as to what to do next!? I've called Barclays and I'm not totally convinced by what they said in reply to my questions.

1. Do i keep paying the £200pm max, or do i need to pay a minimum to keep the account open? They said i don't have to pay anything now. I can stop the DD payments. The account will stay open by leaving the money there until my solicitor applies for it when we finally buy our 1st house. 

2. What will the interest rate be now the account has gone above 12k? 
(Eg: HSBC is 0.65%) After a long wait, the best answer they could find is that the rate is variable. Natwest is 0.55 atm. So i imagine Barclays rate will be around the same. 

(Why keep paying £200pm at 0.65%, when i can pay that money into my Chase account at 2.7%). 

Hope this helps and pls let me know if this info is wrong at all? 

I asked Barclays the same about minimum paying-in amounts; they told me there's no minimum too.

I'm minded to transfer to HSBC this tax year as their interest rate is better (up to £12k) but hoping Barclays might increase their rate again soon.

dekkard

I've been looking at HSBC's form for transferring a Help to Buy ISA to them.

Under 'Previous Years' Subscriptions' it says:

'The ISA Regulations state that a Help to Buy: ISA must be transferred as a whole. Partial transfers are therefore not allowed.'

This suggests that in the new tax year I wouldn't be able to part transfer from a HSBC HTB ISA to a regular cash ISA. 

Are HSBC correct on this? I'm not sure they are.

eskbanker

dekkard said:

I've been looking at HSBC's form for transferring a Help to Buy ISA to them.

Under 'Previous Years' Subscriptions' it says:

'The ISA Regulations state that a Help to Buy: ISA must be transferred as a whole. Partial transfers are therefore not allowed.'

This suggests that in the new tax year I wouldn't be able to part transfer from a HSBC HTB ISA to a regular cash ISA. 

Are HSBC correct on this? I'm not sure they are.

It's not permitted to hold multiple HTB ISAs so partial transfers from an HTB to another HTB would fall foul of this.

However, a partial transfer from a HTB ISA to a non-HTB cash ISA is a different scenario, i.e. the one you were originally talking about yesterday....

dekkard

eskbanker said:

dekkard said:

I've been looking at HSBC's form for transferring a Help to Buy ISA to them.

Under 'Previous Years' Subscriptions' it says:

'The ISA Regulations state that a Help to Buy: ISA must be transferred as a whole. Partial transfers are therefore not allowed.'

This suggests that in the new tax year I wouldn't be able to part transfer from a HSBC HTB ISA to a regular cash ISA. 

Are HSBC correct on this? I'm not sure they are.

It's not permitted to hold multiple HTB ISAs so partial transfers from an HTB to another HTB would fall foul of this.

However, a partial transfer from a HTB ISA to a non-HTB cash ISA is a different scenario, i.e. the one you were originally talking about yesterday....

Thanks. Indeed - it's the HSBC wording that's thrown me. I asked them what regulations they were referring to specifically. They couldn't tell me.

dekkard

Ok, a long shot but has anyone filled in a HSBC Help to Buy 'Transfer In' form recently? I have a question for anyone who's recently done a transfer.