Buying with a lifetime ISA

joehfax

Hi

Quick question really

Both myself and partner have a LISA, we went to view a house yesterday and fell in love with it, I got the impression from the estate agent that the seller was looking for a quick sale, there are 4 other bids in place all with chains, we as FTB don't.

The thing that is bothering me is we only opened the Lisa's mid June last year so can't touch them till then, and I have read that it can take 30days to get the money out, is that right?

Thanks

bowlhead99

joehfax wrote: »

The thing that is bothering me is we only opened the Lisa's mid June last year so can't touch them till then, and I have read that it can take 30days to get the money out, is that right?

Yes.

More accurately you can't touch them without penalty until then. You could touch them today if it was really important to you.

Given mid-June is only about six weeks away, and the vendor hasn't accepted an offer yet, let alone you doing a survey on the property or get your mortgage offer etc, you wouldn't be expecting to really need your completion monies until after mid June.

Even if you do agree with the vendor that you'll both aim to try to get it completed by mid to late June, you can always just get to mid June when you're in a position to exchange contracts and then put in the contract that you won't complete until mid July because it doesn't suit you. When the vendor complains because he wanted to complete during June, just tell him that if he doesn't sell to you there's no way he can complete with anyone else in that timescale so he's over a barrel really.

Of course you might go down the path of everything going full speed ahead for a quick exchange and completion and then actually the vendor stops being in such a hurry because the place he needed the sale money to move into has fallen through and he would prefer to stay in the property longer while he works out what he wants to do next.

So, in your position I woudn't let the LISA timescales stop me putting in an offer on Monday.

Lolly88

You can send the declaration to your LISA provider 30 days before the anniversary and they will then issue the fund on the anniversary date meaning you can aim to exchange in mid June.