Has anyone claimed a help to buy isa?

louisen6

Hello,

We have received a mortgage offer and the solicitor has sent us an invoice showing the fees we owe which includes our deposit. However there is no mention of how we transfer our help to buy isa to them and how the claim the money earned, I was wondering if anyone had any experience of this yet? I have emailed the solicitor but I was hoping someone had some advice as a buyer.

Thank you

mildredalien

I'll be interested in this too as we're using a H2B ISA - from my understanding the solicitor claims this back from the government. I'm not sure how this works in practice exactly though.

My thoughts were that we pay the solicitor the H2B ISA (say £1600) and then the rest of the due deposit which should theoretically be £400 less than the agreed deposit, as the solicitor will then claim the £400...

mije1983

From the MSE page:

When you're ready to buy, to get the bonus, you close down your Help to Buy ISA account, and transfer the funds into another account (or your solicitor's account). You'll then receive a closing letter from your ISA provider, which you need to give to your solicitor.
The solicitor then uses the letter to apply online for the government bonus.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/help-to-buy-ISA

owainlfc

I didnt know I had to close it before applying for the contribution,

I will be doing it today so will update when its done

Sam12341

The solicitor also has a form that they send you to fill in. Make sure you keep your closing letter/statement from the bank as the solicitor uploads this, and the form to the online system to claim the deposit. Mine said she's done a few now and it only takes a couple of days for the bonus to come through.

siba

Morning,

We are due to complete next Wednesday and are using our Help to Buy ISA.

The first point to note (which isn't widely publicised) is that the Help to Buy ISA Bonus can ONLY be used toward the final purchase of the house. It cannot be used as a deposit or for fees.

I think the reason for this is to protect the government's money if everything collapses. If you were to use it for a deposit and then you pulled out, you would lose your deposit - including the government bonus.

I closed my ISA (NatWest) with a balance of £1,800 - entitled me to a £450 bonus. My wife did the same with Virgin. Both banks sent us closing statements which we have given to our solicitor. She has since sent us through a form for us to declare we are first time buyers. This will allow her to claim the bonus - we never get our hands on the cash.

Our purchase price is 200k, we have a deposit of £10k. We planned on using the two £450 towards our 10k deposit. However, as we have since discovered we can't do this, we had 2 options.

1 - Simultaneous exchange and completion. Meaning we don't pay a deposit, we simply pay £200k - £190k mortgage, £9,100 cash, £900 HTB ISA Bonus.

2 - Agree a low deposit with vendor of £9,100 at exchange. Then the remainig £190,900 to be paid at completion - £190k mortgage, £900 HTB ISA Bonus.

Our situation allows us to exchange and complete ate the same time, so that's what we're doing. Our sooictor has not yet received the cash but she only received our declaration forms yesterday.

Hope that helps.

wisevik

siba wrote: »

Morning,

We are due to complete next Wednesday and are using our Help to Buy ISA.

The first point to note (which isn't widely publicised) is that the Help to Buy ISA Bonus can ONLY be used toward the final purchase of the house. It cannot be used as a deposit or for fees.

I think the reason for this is to protect the government's money if everything collapses. If you were to use it for a deposit and then you pulled out, you would lose your deposit - including the government bonus.

I closed my ISA (NatWest) with a balance of £1,800 - entitled me to a £450 bonus. My wife did the same with Virgin. Both banks sent us closing statements which we have given to our solicitor. She has since sent us through a form for us to declare we are first time buyers. This will allow her to claim the bonus - we never get our hands on the cash.

Our purchase price is 200k, we have a deposit of £10k. We planned on using the two £450 towards our 10k deposit. However, as we have since discovered we can't do this, we had 2 options.

1 - Simultaneous exchange and completion. Meaning we don't pay a deposit, we simply pay £200k - £190k mortgage, £9,100 cash, £900 HTB ISA Bonus.

2 - Agree a low deposit with vendor of £9,100 at exchange. Then the remainig £190,900 to be paid at completion - £190k mortgage, £900 HTB ISA Bonus.

Our situation allows us to exchange and complete ate the same time, so that's what we're doing. Our sooictor has not yet received the cash but she only received our declaration forms yesterday.

Hope that helps.

How did you get on, did you exchange and complete on the same day?

siba

Hello, apologies for the (extremely) late reply to this - I hadn't realised anyone had asked me a question. I thought I would still reply now in case anyone stumbles across this.

Yes, we were able to exchange and complete on the same day. We sent our £9,100 to the solicitor a few days before. She added the HTB ISA bonus and the mortgage and it all went through without any problems.

ST1991

Just to stick my oar in, i completed in October last year and had the same experience as point 2 in Siba's post above: agree a lower deposit, solicitor applies for HTB bonus and it is put forward at completion with mortgage funds

Lauraflo1

ST1991 - how long did you have been exchange and completion?