Nationwide Help to Buy ISA/Cash ISA

TheShape

I have been reviewing my sister's finances and have found out that despite saving to buy her first home, she does not have a Help To Buy ISA.


She had a meeting at a Nationwide branch on 4th April 2016 (despite me offering to sit and review her finances with her) and has assured me since that she has been paying £200 per month into her Help to Buy ISA.


I pretty much demanded she logged into her Nationwide Online banking today because despite saying that she wants to do more with her money she won't do it without some prompting/guidance.


I noticed immediately that she doesn't have a HTB ISA at all but instead has a Nationwide Save to Buy Account. She has clearly confused 'Help to Buy' with 'Save to Buy' (the account name is similar, they both pay 2% interest and both allow only a £200 deposit each month). It's a stupid mistake on her part but failure on Nationwide's part to notice this. All Current Account and Savings products she has are with Nationwide only.


I understand that Nationwide allow a Split ISA. She has paid in £1000 and withdrawn £3000 from her Nationwide Cash ISA this year. Do these subscriptions/withdrawals in any way affect how she opens a HTB ISA or the deposits she can make to it. She won't be making further deposits to the Cash ISA but may need to transfer to a different Nationwide Cash ISA as the ISA they have opened for her was possibly not the best paying ISA that she qualified for at the time and certainly isn't now.


I want her to get the HTB ISA open as soon as possible to maximise the Government payment.

MARTYM8`

She should open the help to buy isa on line straight away - and move £1200 via their online isa transfer service (for internal transfers) into her help to buy isa as the opening monthly lump sum. If she does this before Wednesday she can then pay another £200 in on Thursday (or transfer this from her isa).

Cos Nationwide allow you to fund your monthly help to buy isa £200 from another Nationwide isa.

This can be done via this link

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/isas/transfer-your-isa


As its a split isa provider you can move funds around between different NW cash isas at will if you use the link.

TheShape

The aim is to open the account tomorrow so as to fund it in November and the start of each calendar month thereafter.

I hadn't seen the specific ISA transfer service, presumably because I've never needed to make use of it.