When to start searching with lifetime ISA

apd123

My wife and I both have lifetime ISAs that will reach their one-year "maturity" February 22nd, 2019 which we can then use for the deposit on your first home.

As we have never bought a home before we aren't sure how early we can start seriously looking. By "seriously looking" I mean to say for example we started looking and found somewhere within a week (incredibly unlikely and very rushed but just using it as an example) when would we be in a position to put an offer in on a house?

I know the obvious answer is from February 22nd, 2019 but we would like to move out as soon as possible into our own home. I am also aware it all depends on the speed of surveyors, lawyers or if the other person is in a chain but is there a rough idea say 1 month before we have access to the funds or more?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Plus

The LISA manager should pay the conveyancer within 30 days of application. Assuming your conveyancer is informed of this, they can presumably put in an application so that the LISA manager pays on your maturity date - ie you can complete any time after 22 Feb 2019. I'm not sure how accurate this can happen, but perhaps if your LISA provider is informed this is what you're trying to do.

Have a read of the 'waiting to exchange' thread. The average time from offer to exchange seems to be about 3-6 months, so you can wind the clock back from your completion date. Most seem to take about 3 months. You can try and wangle longer with your vendor, but the risk is they go with someone else who can move quicker.

However, how necessary is the LISA bonus? I think the maximum in bonus you can accrue at the moment is about £6K (2x 2 years LISA+HTBISA). If you found your dream home tomorrow, would that £6K be make or break for your affordability, or would it still be feasible? In other words, you could scope out your non-LISA options now (assuming you withdrew the money and paid the penalty), and treat the LISA bonus as a bump which allows you to afford a better house after Feb 2019.

apd123

Thank you for the detailed reply. It is true we could cut our losses with the bonus but its free money and it is a desire to move into our own place earlier not a need. Really helpful to have a rough guideline of about 3 months before the data when we can start properly looking for our own place.