Using a LISA for first-time mortgage

NorwegianWood

Hi,

Looking for a bit of advice regarding using a Skipton Lifetime ISA as the bulk of a deposit sum. Essentially it's looking as though I will exchange on the purchase of my first home before the £1k government bonus for this tax year has gone into my LISA. This is not ideal, as I would like this bonus to be in the account before my solicitor requests the funds. However, we have a fixed move-in date of 24th May, and Skipton are stating they need 30 days to transfer the monies, so we cannot delay requesting the money in case Skipton take the full 30 days, which will push us past the completion date anyway.

So I have two questions. 1) How likely are Skipton to need 30 days (!) to release funds to my solicitor? 2) If funds end up being released before the bonus goes in, will I still be entitled to it despite the £4k I transferred across to trigger the bonus no longer being in the account?

Thanks in advance! :money:

SunnyCat

I've just been looking into this and my understanding is that the cut off for the payment is by the 6th of the month (as I assume you mean this year's payment, this will be by 6th of May) and then your bonus is credited within 14 days of 20th of that month. I also saw posts from people being credited on 26th, so from that I take that it won't necessarily be whole 14 days for the money to be in your account. Not sure about the 30 day thing specifically, but I thought I'd throw this out there..