Lifetime ISAs guide

Curls2208

Thanks very much for the reminder. Not quite as hard a hit as I had calculated in my brain. Night shifts, what can I say, the wrong time to be doing sums.

Gary.Kelson

Hello, I am aware that I cannot open 2x Cash ISAs in the same tax year with different providers, however does this rule extend to LISAs - i.e. can I open a Cash ISA with 1 provider, and a cash LISA with a different provider?

Thanks in advance.

eskbanker

Gary.Kelson wrote: »

Hello, I am aware that I cannot open 2x Cash ISAs in the same tax year with different providers, however does this rule extend to LISAs - i.e. can I open a Cash ISA with 1 provider, and a cash LISA with a different provider?

Lifetime ISAs are regarded as a different type so yes, you can pay into both a cash ISA and a cash LISA in the same tax year, as per https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts:

There are 4 types of ISA:

• cash ISAs
• stocks and shares ISAs
• innovative finance ISAs
• Lifetime ISAs

You can put money into one of each kind of ISA each tax year.

Gary.Kelson

eskbanker wrote: »

Lifetime ISAs are regarded as a different type so yes, you can pay into both a cash ISA and a cash LISA in the same tax year, as per

Thanks for the quick response!

JackR80

Hi,

I have about £10k in premium bonds (which I am looking to move) and a £5k bonus post-tax coming in soon. I am looking to save towards my first home in in commuter town to London (tbc where). I am hoping to be able to buy in 3-4 years.

Does opening a LISA make the most sense, as I could put in 12k in the next 13 months (March 2018-2019- April 2020). I am a bit concerned as no large banks offer them. Or would the HTB ISA makes more sense?

Any advice would be appreciated!

eskbanker

JackR80 wrote: »

Hi,

I have about £10k in premium bonds (which I am looking to move) and a £5k bonus post-tax coming in soon. I am looking to save towards my first home in in commuter town to London (tbc where). I am hoping to be able to buy in 3-4 years.

Does opening a LISA make the most sense, as I could put in 12k in the next 13 months (March 2018-2019- April 2020). I am a bit concerned as no large banks offer them. Or would the HTB ISA makes more sense?

Any advice would be appreciated!

LISA makes most sense financially, as you've already worked out, in that your £12K will be bumped up by £3K in that period, while if you opened a HTB ISA, you'd get no more than £3,600 into it during that time, for £900 of government bonus (later on).

Personally I wouldn't be concerned about the larger players not offering them, so in your shoes I'd get a LISA opened with Skipton or Newcastle sooner rather than later, especially with the tax year end looming....

JackR80

Thank you!

Should I be concerned with reports the government are looking to discontinue the scheme?

Also, if they did, what would that mean? i assume no more govt bonus, but could you take your money out without the withdrawal penalty? What is the precent here?

eskbanker

JackR80 wrote: »

Thank you!

Should I be concerned with reports the government are looking to discontinue the scheme?

Also, if they did, what would that mean? i assume no more govt bonus, but could you take your money out without the withdrawal penalty? What is the precent here?

Any government scheme could be discontinued at any time but (especially given the long-published and planned cessation of the HTB ISA scheme later this year) it would surprise me if they were to take the LISA one down too. I don't think anyone on here could offer any meaningful insight into the likelihood, or indeed the impact, of it being terminated, but there would be widespread uproar if savers were prevented from accessing their money in the way it had been intended, so in your shoes I'd carry on regardless....

dadacool

Can anyone offer some advice?

Looking to setup a LISA finally for a house purchase. Probably looking at purchasing in 2-3 years.

Have been meaning to set up some sort of bonus since help to buy was announced way back when but just never got round to it.

been looking at LISA's, From my research, There are only 3 Cash LISA providers, Newcastle has the best rate at a whopping 1.1% with skipton second at 1%.

Reccomended advice from reading around is not worth going down the stocks & shares route due to the relatively short period of time and the obvious brexit entangle.

Looking to dump the full £4000 before the end of this tax year. Rest of funds currently are either in premium bonds or used for other fund making (matched betting mainly which generally returns much more than either premium bonds wins or 1%).

Does anyone reccomended anything other than safe option of putting 4k into a cash LISA and collect the bonus. Not overly clued up on the stocks and shares side. but thought Id offer it up to see if anyone had any suggestions.

And reccomendations between newcastle building society and skipton? Skipton seems to have some bad reviews on trustpilot and reading back some pages someone else was having bother getting them to transfer. Their customer service doesnt seem to great.

masonic

If you are looking to buy in 2-3 years, then even very low risk investments are not worth considering in my view - asset prices have been hugely inflated by QE and the returns going forward are likely to be below average (and that means probably below cash). Anything higher risk is a total punt and you could end up having to delay your house purchase if markets perform poorly.

So use a cash LISA and deposit late in the tax year so you can maximise interest. Can't really comment on either provider, but there's more information about the inner workings of the Skipton LISA on the forum than the Newcastle one.