HtB ISA, LISA and LISA for saving to buy

Hannimal

I have recently started saving for a mortgage. I am late to the game but at the moment I have a split cash ISA - one help to buy (opened last month) and one cash access - with NatWest. I am wondering if I should swap to a LISA instead of the HtB because I can save more than 200 per month and because where I live (Bristol) I am unlikely to buy a property that is less than £250k by the time I have enough saved for a deposit. You just don't get central, decent, housing with that money here.

I have a few questions:
1. If I have two LISAs (e.g. one this tax year for stocks and shares, one next tax year for cash) can I use both toward a mortgage or do I need to pick?

2. Does it make sense for me to close the HtB and transfer all the money off from there to a LISA?

3. Can I have a stocks and shares ISA and a stocks and shares LISA?

thanks so much for the help.

bowlhead99

1) For each of the LISAs, as far as I know it would be allowable to make a penalty-free withdrawal to fund your first property, regardless of whether you are also using another LISA to help fund the same property. But it's pretty academic anyway because if there was a restriction you would get around it by simply transferring the balance of one to the other using the standard LISA transfer process, before doing one big withdrawal.

2) HtB ISAs often have quite good interest rates compared to other cash savings products. If you don't need the HtB money to be able to afford to max out your 2019/2020 tax year LISA allowance, it would be a shame to give up that interest rate - as long as it doesn't stop you bring able to afford to put your max limit into the LISA this year, you might just prefer to keep the money in the HtB for the moment and move it into the LISA next tax year instead.

3) Yes there are 4 main ISA types, you can have a Cash ISA, a S&S ISA, an IF ISA and a LISA. The fact that LISAs come in multiple flavours (cash or s&s) and cash ISAs come in multiple flavours (fixed term, HtB, regular saver, notice access etc) shouldn't distract you from the 4 main headings. A S&S ISA and a LISA at the same time is fine.

Some would comment that if you are saving hard for a property any time soon, it might not be wise to use S&S at all due to the potential for serious investment losses causing delays to when you can afford to buy but it depends what else you are planning in your life for the medium to long term