Help to Buy ISA - do I need to close account after buying a house?

rhi_26

I opened Help to Buy ISA with the obvious intention of using the funds and the bonus to buy a house. However, I'm now in the lucky position of being able to afford a house that's above £250 000, so I can't access the Help to Buy ISA bonus. I also won't need to use the funds in the ISA towards the deposit (buy may use it for furniture and renovation in a few months time). The account will therefore still be open once the purchase has completed. I will still have the monthly standing order going into it as well. At that point am I in breach of anything? Do I need to stop the standing order and close the account?

Hope you can help :-)

eskbanker

As per this recent thread, a strict interpretation of the scheme rules would require you to close it when you've purchased, as you'd no longer be a (future) first-time buyer, but it's not actually explicitly spelt out in those terms....

Rich2808

The terms and conditions of every HTB ISA make it clear that you must be a qualifying first time buyer to open an account i.e. never owned all or part of a residential property in the UK or abroad.

They then assume when you buy you close the account and draw down the bonus.

Very few address the situation where you cant use the scheme because you have bought a home above the £250k (outside London)/£450k (London) thresholds.

In theory yes you should close it down. Most providers will contact you annually to make sure you are still eligible - at that stage you definitely should close it.