H2B ISA and cash ISA? Plus Stocks and shares ISA and mortgage question!

Davidnotmark

Hi all,
I've been spending the day looking at ISA's and investment opportunities (a bit of an admin day!). I came across something on MSE that said that a help to buy ISA is a cash ISA and therefore you can only have one? Is this correct? I opened up a H2B ISA two years ago with Barclays, but also have a cash ISA which I have had for many years (I transferred it earlier this year too, for a better rate. Does that mean I can only put money into one of them? Or that only one of them should be open, and therefore I should close one? Or can I split the £20k annual limit between both? I'm really confused about it. I'm hoping that because they were opened in different years that it's ok to have both, but not sure! Will there be penalties if I am in the wrong?!

On a separate note, I can see that I am able to open up a separate stocks and shares ISA - does anyone know anything about fidelity? I have had a look online and they seem to be one of the leading companies? I guess I need to do a bit of research in which type of investment to go with.

Finally, I am considering looking to buy a house next year - do you know if the money can come from different places to pay the deposit? e.g. current accounts and an ISA? I know you can't use the bonus from H2B as the deposit, but can the cash you have put into it be used as a deposit? When you are looking for a bank to give you the mortgage, do they look at all of your bank accounts to see how you look after your money? (I quite often open up diff bank accounts for switching offers that have certain things you need to do to be rewarded - e.g pay in £1500 per month for 6 months or pay in £1000 per month to get 5% interest, so I simply transfer money between accounts. I don't want it to look dodgy to the mortgage advisor that I have money switching between 4/5 different bank accounts in my name every month!)

Thanks for reading through this! Any advise/help is appreciated!

David

masonic

You can have as many cash ISAs as you like, but you can only pay new money into one per tax year. If you are using a H2B ISA towards a house purchase, then the bonus must be used at completion towards the mortgage deposit. It does not matter where the other funds come from. Mortgage lenders will generally ask to see bank statements when you apply for a mortgage. If your main current account does not have any recent transactions related to transfers between accounts, then it is unlikely they would pick up on your other accounts and shuffling of money between them.