Help to Buy ISA guide

kffleming

I have a lump sum saved, which I would like to use in the next year to buy my first home. Can I still use the Help to Buy ISA?

eskbanker

kffleming wrote: »

I have a lump sum saved, which I would like to use in the next year to buy my first home. Can I still use the Help to Buy ISA?

Yes, albeit you're limited to how much of your lump sum you could put into a HTB ISA, which can only be funded with a maximum of £1000 upfront and then £200/month, but use the HTB ISA for as much as you can between now and purchase time.

AmandaCM

Need some opinions please! Myself and my partner have just opened a Help to buy isa with Barclays, our plan is to live off of one persons wages each month and save the others. We have deposited the full £1200 in the help to buy isa and was planning to open a second help to buy (first one is in my partners name, second will be in mine) in September as we're going on holiday in between and want to take advantage of depositing the full amounts. Once we have paid off the second £1200 deposit and are regularly depositing the £400 each month (£200 to each account) we will have another £900 to put into savings every month. From my understanding, we can't open another ISA with a help to buy (I think?) so would our best option be to save the rest of the money in an every day savers account? Or, would it benefit us to have just the one help to buy ISA and open a regular ISA that we could deposit £1100 in every month to build interest? We would like to be able to access the money regularly as were also planning our wedding!

I hope this makes sense and somebody is able to help me!

squizbomb

Hi,
So in the future I am hoping I can use this Isa with my partner. The situation at the minute is that I own a property and my partner still lives with her parents. We are going to open a help to buy Isa in her name and save up around 10k as her deposit. So my question is, the property we will buy will be ours, so a joint mortgage, will my partner still receive the bonus's and be eligible for the Isa with my details being on the mortgage? I would also contribute a separate deposit for the mortgage. So if the Isa had 10k in my partners name and I had my own separate 10k, would the Isa still get the bonus of 2.5k if the mortgage was joint on buying the home?

Kateod

Maria90uk wrote: »

Hi Kate,

Are you any closer to finding out the answer to this? My partner and I are asking the exact same question at the moment after having an offer accepted on a house. There seem to be no clear guidelines on what the bonus money actually goes towards, apart from "the transaction on completion". If it does come off the mortgage amount we need to tell our lender asap, but we don't know when completion will be yet so we dont want to close the ISA early and lose out on more bonus money! It's pretty confusing.

Thanks,
Maria

Hi Maria,

We closed our H2B accounts last week and gave the closing letters to our Solicitor (not helpful that Nationwide need to post it to you!). Due to the scheme being so new, our Solicitor didn't know much about it himself, he said he was going to contact Halifax to ask their advise. I asked him the question of where the bonus goes to and he said the deposit, so in affect if your deposit is £10,000 and your bonus is £1000, just transfer £9000. That's what he told us, and that's what were going to do, they are the ones supposed to be advising us after all!

Hope that helps,
Kate.

thomasm.pearce

Hi,

I'm currently a student with a part time job, I believe that I could save up to £100/150 a month to put into a savings account. I have limited funds at the moment so don't believe that I could come up with the £1200 initial amount. What would you suggest I do?

Tom

grey_gym_sock

thomasm.pearce wrote: »

I'm currently a student with a part time job, I believe that I could save up to £100/150 a month to put into a savings account. I have limited funds at the moment so don't believe that I could come up with the £1200 initial amount. What would you suggest I do?

£1200 is the maximum, not a minimum.

samaber99

I live in Oxford. The house prices are similar to London. Is there any chance the limit for London houses will be extended to areas with similar house prices? If not there is no point for me, as £250k will not buy a house in Oxford.

Is there anyway to loby for this. I feel this is discrimination towards London buyers?

masonic

samaber99 wrote: »

I live in Oxford. The house prices are similar to London. Is there any chance the limit for London houses will be extended to areas with similar house prices?

It will... if you transfer the funds into a LISA next year and buy using that.

smile88egc

I love in the south west and will come a cross a similar issue, and you can't cash in a LISA until April 18 which is a long time to wait. You could write to your local MP and copy in the chancellor?