HTB to LISA?

AM30

Hi,

I have currently got a Halifax HTB ISA with around £4200 and a Skipton LISA with around £350.

I haven't been paying into any of them consistently, but need to start as I would like get myself in a position to get a house in the next few years. The LISA has been open for over 12 months.

I am not sure what to do, as i am aware of the 250,000 limit on the house price on the HTB which makes me want to go for the LISA as this has a 450,000 limit.

Should i look at transferring as much of the HTB as possible into the LISA before the end of this tax year, then the remaining part in the next? (I'll have about £3700 left for the LISA this tax year)

Sorry if this has been answered a few times before, all of this is pretty confusing!

Thanks in advance

aj23_2

I would, yes. I did. But up to you. You'll gain more.

eskbanker

I agree, prioritising LISA over HTB makes most sense, but worth bearing in mind that you've left it late to sort this out by the end of the tax year (this time next week), so you'd probably be best withdrawing from the HTB to your bank and then paying from there into the LISA rather than trying to process it as a direct ISA transfer (which can take up to three weeks), assuming you have sufficient headroom in your 2018/19 £20K ISA allowance.

AM30

Cool, I've just done it this morning so I've now put in the max amount for the LISA. Will wait to put the rest in...

Any ideas on what to do with the HTB ISA now?

eskbanker

AM30 wrote: »

Any ideas on what to do with the HTB ISA now?

Given the relatively generous HTB interest rates, worth retaining it and putting the £200/month into it, either as a staging post for money that you'll eventually feed into the LISA at the end of the 2019/20 tax year or as a home for the surplus above £4K LISA money if you'll be saving more than that.