Staircasing while using partner's help to buy ISA

jankospalko

Hello,

I am a current shared ownership owner where I own 65% - I purchased this last year in my sole name.

I would like to purchase the additional 35% to bring this up to 100%. I would like to also put my fiance on the deeds. We weren't able to purchase originally together as we otherwise would be unqualified (our savings were too high).

She is a first time buyer and has been saving into an ISA help to buy account for over 3 years. She now has a healthy pot of around £6,000. With the government top up of 25% this would be around £7,500.

Can she use her help to buy ISA 25% government bonus when we will be staircasing to 100%. Until now it was only myself on the deeds.

My current lender has offered us a 2nd mortgage to cover the 35% while I am still keeping the original mortgage for the initial 65%.

Any help would be much appreciated as my solicitor is not very experienced in Help to buy ISA dealings.

Thank you,

Jan

shortcrust

Yes!:) See this for more info:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/help-to-buy-ISA?_ga=2.181293543.1150511819.1524944752-1463191134.1357129108

I'd be a bit worried about using a solicitor who couldn't answer the question. It took me 3 minutes to find out the answer via google and you're not even paying me!:D

jankospalko

Thank you shortcrust!

Would this however still be applicable in case of remortgage when my partner is being added to the mortgage to purchase the additional 35% in the shared ownership.

Solicitor is saying this wouldn't be classed as purchase but a remortgage so the Help to Buy ISA bonus might not apply in this instance.

Sound like a grey area no-one has thought about providing explicit guidance.

jankospalko

Quick update if anyone is in the same situation as me.

I e-mailed UKARcs, Administrators of the Help to Buy: ISA scheme who very kindly checked this with the HM treasure and good news is that my partner is eligible to use her Help to Buy ISA and receive the 25% government bonus when staircasing our shared ownership (despite it being classed as a remortgage).

If you have any questions where it's not clear whether you can get the 25% bonus - I found it very useful to contact the UKARcs via the Help to Buy ISA website enquiry form.

Hope this will help other people too!

CMPTheOwl

Hi,


I was having a look around and found that now the UKAR not long administers the Help to Buy ISA scheme, since April 2019 but instead NS&I now do. (As a new user of this forum, I cannot post the link)



However when I contacted the NS&I they said they do not administer it....very annoying. I have gone back to them and shown them the above link.



It's quite frustating as my solicitor, mortgage advisor believe I cannot use it as well.



Any help would be appreciated.

CMPTheOwl

So an update, I responded to their email with the link to UKA's post on their website stating NS&I are the new admins, they came back and said it is run by another department. The email to contact them is [FONT=&quot][EMAIL="conveyancer.htb.isa.admin@atos.net"]conveyancer.htb.isa.admin@atos.net[/EMAIL]. [/FONT]