Can I use both a S&S LISA and Cash LISA together to buy a house?

dude7691

Hi all  

I'm looking to buy a house in around 4 years time (flexible) and already have a cash LISA with £5k in it, soon to be £10k after I transfer in for this tax year. I'm looking to invest in stocks in the event of a significant market downturn (say what you will about me timing the market ). Anyhow, I was looking at AJ Bell YouInvest Lifetime ISA and it looks appealing, low fees and cheap dealing charges. Therefore, I may not pay into my current cash LISA when/if that time comes, and open an AJ Bell YouInvest Lifetime ISA instead. Just want to check a few things:

I am aware of the rule that you can only "open and fund one LISA per tax year". I opened my Cash LISA in 2019, so I'd be fine to open another one. However, would the bonus be able to be paid into whichever account I choose to contribute my 4k to per year? For example, if I have 10k in my Cash LISA this year, and then next year decide to open and fund the AJ Bell S&S LISA with 4k, I'll get the bonus on the AJ Bell account won't I?

My final question is then when I come to use these LISA's to buy a house (as a single buyer), will I be able to cash in both and use them both towards the house purchase? I may not need to cash in the stocks one to buy the place, but would be nice to do so if the stocks have gone up significantly since I purchased them. 

I did check the rest of MSE before posting this, I know you guys get a lot of questions about LISA's! 

Thanks in advance  

Alexland

You can have multiple LISA accounts provided you only contribute new money into one per tax year. Growth, interest and bonus are not counted as contributions of new money. The bonus for each contribution will be added into the relevant account. Your solicitor may charge you for their extra time for making penalty free withdrawals from two different provider accounts.

If a stockmarket downturn happens and you decide to take a gamble that it will go up again before you need the money then you could always transfer your existing LISA to a S&S provider and continue to contribute with any remaining annual allowance. I did that during last year's crash with the children's Junior ISAs and made a very quick return but markets can take many years to recover and last year was unusually quick. AJ Bell's transfer department are very good but it might still take around a month or two to do a cash LISA transfer as it will also depend on the speed of your old provider.

eskbanker

And on the subject of transfers, another option would be to wait and transfer from one to the other a month or two before buying your house, which would allow you continue to hedge your bets on cash v S&S for now, while also avoiding any issue of a conveyancer having to access multiple accounts, assuming of course that at least one of them will accept transfers by then....