Help to buy ISA

Dan05

Hi, I have a help to buy ISA. If I claimed money from the government through this scheme for a deposit. If it still wasn't enough for the initial deposit can I add funds from a savings account? Thanks

nervousftbs

Do you mean claiming the bonus? You can only get the bonus on completion so you would still need to have the 10% deposit required for exchange (although you could negotiate less). We both have HTB ISAs but only 50% of our deposit is in there, the other is in savings. We have saved enough for the deposit and we are using the bonus to pay our solicitor fees and then we get the rest back in cash. 

Competsoph

You don't need to have the whole deposit amount in your H2B ISA, the rest of this can come from savings. 

thaddy

nervousftbs said:

Do you mean claiming the bonus? You can only get the bonus on completion so you would still need to have the 10% deposit required for exchange (although you could negotiate less). We both have HTB ISAs but only 50% of our deposit is in there, the other is in savings. We have saved enough for the deposit and we are using the bonus to pay our solicitor fees and then we get the rest back in cash. 

My understanding is that you can only use HTB ISA funds towards the cost of your property purchase and nothing else. Did your solicitor confirm that you can use the bonus to pay them?

nervousftbs

thaddy said:

My understanding is that you can only use HTB ISA funds towards the cost of your property purchase and nothing else. Did your solicitor confirm that you can use the bonus to pay them?

Yes he confirmed the bonus can be used against the fees - once the solicitor has applied for the bonus you can use it for whatever you want. It's just the money in the ISA itself that has to go towards the house purchase. 

Competsoph

I was under the understanding that the bonus is added to the 'pot' of money that is sent to your solicitor. They take out all the required funds (your actual deposit), they then pay themselves with the remainder. If there is some cash left over from the added bonus this will be returned to you, if they need more cash they will hound you for it! Thus your bonus can be used to pay your fees but not through direct methods. 
It does sound confusing. There was another good post on this which a few of the regulars commented and explained things quite well. 

nervousftbs

@Competsoph that was my understanding too - we have just been sent a draft completion statement as our solicitor has finished everything on his side now so wanted to give us the final amount for the fees. He said he would update after we had paid the deposit on exchange and when he had received the bonus. he will transfer it to us minus any remaining balance owed. I vaguely remember seeing the post, will have another look for it but I am just going off what my solicitor told us.!