Buying a new home, questions with HTB ISA bonus and fees.

DiscoFishhh

Hi, me and my partner are buying a new build home from Persimmon, we have a mortgage offer and are waiting to exchange but I have a few questions I hope someone here can help with.

Firstly we both have help to buy ISAS with around £4250 in each, our deposit is only £7250 and we will need the spare to buy things for the house, would it be a wise idea to remove the excess from the accounts prior to exchange or should it not matter too much?
I'm also a bit confused as to how the bonus works, I've read the advice given on the main site regarding closing the accounts and giving the closing statements to our solicitor and then the solicitor gets the bonus from the government. Will we ever see this money? We will have around £1500 legal fees to pay (inc stamp duty) will the bonus go towards this or simply reduce our mortgage?

We were also told by persimmon when we reserved the plot that they would put £750 towards our legal fees, we've since found out that instead of reducing our fees by £750 as we thought the £750 will reduce the sale price of the house, as will our £500 reservation fee. This is where I am a bit confused, we've received a mortgage offer that would cover the full price of the house, does this mean that the money that was going to go towards our legal fees will just pay off a bit of our mortgage instead? I'm feeling a bit like Persimmon saw us coming and offered us £750 'Towards legal fees' to rope us in but in the end we're not really getting much benefit.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.

marliepanda

Not sure what you mean by 'removing the spare' your deposit is your deposit, anything else you can spend on whatever you want.

Everything needs to be paid. The HtB isa bonus is only for the mortgage but the way it works it could end up paying fees, but you will 'see' it.

Whether the money comes off your mortgage or off your fees, you 'see' it.

DiscoFishhh

Not sure if you understood my question so I will rephrase.

I have around £5000 in saving as of now which will go towards fees and stuff I need for the house. If the bonus from my HTB ISA goes towards my legal fees then I will not have to pay £1500 out of my savings, leaving me more money to spend on items I need for the house. If the bonus reduces the total of my mortgage then I am assuming my mortgage payments will go down slightly, meaning I will pay out of pocket for the legal fees and therefore have less to spend on the house. I understand that if it comes off the mortgage I will still benefit but not so much in the short term.