Lifetime ISAs guide

georgiabrett

Can you pay into a LISA and Help to Buy ISA at the same time? I know that the page says you can HOLD them both, but can you actually PAY INTO THEM BOTH in the same tax year? So say for example, I wanted to pay in the max £200 per month into a HTB to benefit from the large interest rate and easy access, and then still pay in £200-£300 per month into a LISA to benefit from the government bonus, would this be allowed? I know that you would only get the government bonus from one (in this case the LISA), but I just want to clarify if you can still pay into both the ISA's legally as well as hold them both, as the post does not make this clear. 

eskbanker

georgiabrett said:

Can you pay into a LISA and Help to Buy ISA at the same time? I know that the page says you can HOLD them both, but can you actually PAY INTO THEM BOTH in the same tax year? So say for example, I wanted to pay in the max £200 per month into a HTB to benefit from the large interest rate and easy access, and then still pay in £200-£300 per month into a LISA to benefit from the government bonus, would this be allowed? I know that you would only get the government bonus from one (in this case the LISA), but I just want to clarify if you can still pay into both the ISA's legally as well as hold them both, as the post does not make this clear. 

https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts confirms:

There are 4 types of ISA:

• cash ISAs [which includes HTB]

• stocks and shares ISAs

• innovative finance ISAs

• Lifetime ISAs

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

dadacool1

Possibly a dumb question but a thought I had and wondering if possible.
Currently have a Cash LISA with skipton and coming upto the deposit time for me to get before the end of this tax year. 

I have been looking at getting a credit card pretty much just to improve credit score as i dont really have a credit score aswell as the obvious protection for large purchases etc.
Could I get an Amex platinum everyday card and use this to make this years £4000 deposit into my cash LISA and then pay it off immediately and acquire the cashback bonus for this? hence free money for a payment i was going to make anyway.

masonic

dadacool1 said:

Possibly a dumb question but a thought I had and wondering if possible.
Currently have a Cash LISA with skipton and coming upto the deposit time for me to get before the end of this tax year. 

I have been looking at getting a credit card pretty much just to improve credit score as i dont really have a credit score aswell as the obvious protection for large purchases etc.
Could I get an Amex platinum everyday card and use this to make this years £4000 deposit into my cash LISA and then pay it off immediately and acquire the cashback bonus for this? hence free money for a payment i was going to make anyway.

Does Skipton even allow payments by credit card? If they did, then most likely it would be considered a cash advance, so not only would you not earn cashback, you'd start being charged interest on the credit card balance from the date you made the transaction.

dadacool1

having just checked, it does not infact accept credit cards which probably should of been the first think i checked.
I have never really looked at credit cards before and have no desire for credit but as I dont really have any bills/subscriptions etc for credit score building, thought I could try and kill two birds with one stone. apparently not.

Lookingtobuy92

Quick question. I opened a LISA a couple years ago and deposited a small amount to hold the account. We are looking to buy a house later this year.

Could I pay in £4k in March, a further £4k in April, and then in say May, withdraw the £10k to put towards a house purchase, meaning the whole thing is only a couple months turnaround?

Cheers

eskbanker

Lookingtobuy92 said:

Quick question. I opened a LISA a couple years ago and deposited a small amount to hold the account. We are looking to buy a house later this year.

Could I pay in £4k in March, a further £4k in April, and then in say May, withdraw the £10k to put towards a house purchase, meaning the whole thing is only a couple months turnaround?

The short answer is yes, but you may be asked to reactivate the account if you haven't paid into it for a couple of years, so try a token quid sooner rather than later to get the process moving.

Alexland

Remember with a LISA qualifying property purchase it is the solicitor who makes the withdrawal. If you withdraw the money before 60 the penalty will be applied 

an1179

My daughter has a LISA with Skipton building society  and is purchasing her first home with no onward chain she had £5000 in her Skipton  LISA from 2018, she deposited £4000 on 14 February (the bonus has not yet been paid) and was intending to deposit £4,000 on 6 April but when would the bonus for the April payment be made approximately please (I think it would not be paid until May)

eskbanker

an1179 said:

My daughter has a LISA with Skipton building society  and is purchasing her first home with no onward chain she had £5000 in her Skipton  LISA from 2018, she deposited £4000 on 14 February (the bonus has not yet been paid) and was intending to deposit £4,000 on 6 April but when would the bonus for the April payment be made approximately please (I think it would not be paid until May)

It'll be either late May or early June - as explained at https://www.skipton.co.uk/savings/isas/lifetime-isa, the bonus claim periods run from 6th of one month to 5th of the next.  Skipton then have 14 days from May 5th to make the claim and the government another 14 days to pay it, so it would be added to the LISA by June 2nd.