LISA bonus and buying timescale

tatartan · 16 February 2020 at 10:39AM

Hi all,

We are thinking about buying our first property and both have lifetime ISA’s and substantial savings in other accounts. Each tax year we have put 4K into each of our LISA’s. Ideally I’d like to benefit from another bonus of £1000 each by transferring 4K each into our LISA’s as soon as it hits April 6th.

I was wondering if you thought this was compatible with our preferred time scale? We are in discussions with a broker at the moment and may have an AIP by the end of next week. After that it would be time to start viewing places and potentially put offers in right?

Are we too soon? Bearing in mind the bonus could take up to 20th May (I think) to actually hit our accounts. The only reason we are doing this and risking missing out on places is because we are so close to the end of the financial year. If it was longer we wouldn’t bother too much.

thanks anyways

kuratowski · 16 February 2020 at 11:05AM

We're now in February, so you could conceivably be in a position to complete by 20th May. Although many purchases do take longer. It's not possible to give a definitive answer.

olbas_oil · 17 February 2020 at 11:54AM

You don't really lose anything, even if you complete before the £1k bonus has come through. You can keep it in the LISA for pension, or withdraw it, less the penalty. So you might get £750 back, depending on timing. But I'd think of it as a £750 bonus, rather than a £250 loss. You can still use the full £4000 towards completion (unless perhaps you complete on 6 or 7 April)