Help to Buy ISA guide

MARTYM8`

Gwinike wrote: »

Thank you for your help. I read through and now I can understand. My last question would be, what do you think about which current account would be better for us: one current account each or a joint one together? My husband's salary is more than 1000, but I'm self employed and my salary is about 5 or 600.

As a start I would recommend the TSB classic plus current account.

It pays 5% on balances up to £2k and you only need to pay in £500 a month to get the interest (and you can transfer it out next day). You can have one each and a joint one – so could potentially get £6k at 5%. It is not time limited either like the Nationwide flex direct where the 5% ends after a year.

It also offers 5% cashback on contactless payments up to £100 a month (i.e. £5 max cashback a month) and a 5% regular monthly saver fixed for 12 months which allows you to invest a further £250 a month (via a standing order from the current account).

Once you have that maximised you can look at others.

http://www.tsb.co.uk/current-accounts/classic-plus-account/

Dan-SA

Hi All, what a great forum. My question is this. If there is a property that person X owns, and person Y wants to 'buy into' that property as a first time buyer (which would mean that X's property deed would need to change to reflect co-ownership of X and Y), does Help to Buy apply? In other words, can Y save for a year to build up enough money to 'buy in'? I hope that makes sense. Thank you.

Lomas16

Hi,

I currently have a normal ISA with the co-operative bank. I am hoping to close this anyway but have paid money into it since April 2015. Does this mean I have to wait until April 2016 to open a HTB isa?The co-op don't currently offer HTB isas.

Thanks

colsten

You can close it, or get it transferred to a split ISA provider.

Gwinike

Thank you very much for your help! And what do you think which is the best HTB ISA? Halifax? It pays interest yearly. If I wanna buy the house less than a year, will I loose the interest?

eskbanker

Gwinike wrote: »

If I wanna buy the house less than a year, will I loose the interest?

No, if you closed the account (or withdrew funds) before the end of the year, you'd be paid the interest accrued up to that point, so don't be swayed by annual versus monthly interest. Halifax certainly has the best interest rate....

GreenOstrich

So, in one Q&A by Martin I saw as question about whether you can transfer money from an existing ISA into a H2B ISA. He answered that in theory this is possible, but that the faff of completing transfer forms each month to transfer £200 may make it unfeasible.
However, I don't see any reason why I can't simply withdraw the money from my existing (instant access) ISA and pay it into a new H2B ISA. Am I missing something?
Clearly this will mean I am using this year's ISA allowance on money which has already been paid into an ISA within an earlier years allowance - but I am not going to have any ability to save extra within my monthly incomings anyhow (and if that changed I would simply stop moving it from the ISA and instead pay in other spare cash) so this would be a way to open and benefit from the H2B ISA which I otherwise wouldn't have at the moment.
If I'm missing something glaring and there's some reason this isn't possible I'd be grateful to hear it!
Thanks

Archi_Bald

If you have already paid into a cash ISA this year, you have the following options

1. close that ISA and put your money somewhere where it earns decent interest (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5374614)
   
   
2. transfer the ISA to a provider who offers a split ISA (e.g. Nationwide). You can then easily transfer from your cash ISA to the HTB ISA. Split ISA providers do not pay the best interest

You cannot continue to have a cash ISA you subscribed to this year at provider A, and start an HTB ISA at provider B. Although there is no link between provider A and provider B that will prevent you from setting things up like that, HMRC will eventually be in touch if you ignore the rules.

Mateja

Is there anything to stop someone using the bonus to purchase a property, then renovating and re-selling within a short time-frame? (i.e. "buy-to-sell" rather than buy to let)

Archi_Bald

Most likely your mortgage.