Help to buy ISA bonus 26 October 2022 at 11:59AM in ISAs & tax-free savings 2 replies 61 views

summerb64

Hello all,

I have a query about the help to buy bonus and was wondering if anyone knew the answer…

myself and my partner have a help to buy isa each, and the house purchase will be below £250k. My question is, if the house is £180k and the amount saved in the ISAs is over our 10% deposit, will you only get the bonus based on the value of the house price and deposit. I.e., £18,000 deposit from the ISA would give £4500 bonus (25%). Or if we have £25,000 in the ISAs but use £18k for the deposit would the bonus still be £6250 (25% of the total amount saved within the isa). Can’t seem to find the answer on any FAQ’s

Many thanks 

eskbanker

Firstly the maximum bonus is £3,000 per HTB ISA, so you can't earn £6,250 across two.

Any bonus claimed must be put towards the value of the property, so you should aim to maximise that, but after claiming the bonus, you can use as much of the capital as you wish towards that purchase price, bearing in mind that you can only claim the bonus at completion rather than exchange.

summerb64

eskbanker said:

Firstly the maximum bonus is £3,000 per HTB ISA, so you can't earn £6,250 across two.

Any bonus claimed must be put towards the value of the property, so you should aim to maximise that, but after claiming the bonus, you can use as much of the capital as you wish towards that purchase price, bearing in mind that you can only claim the bonus at completion rather than exchange.

Ahh of course, forgot it is capped at £3k! Thank you for your input that is very helpful! The house I am looking to buy is from my landlord strangely enough - so I’m also going to ask if I can put slightly less than the 10% at the exchange of contracts stage, so that the bonus will pay for the remainder of the 10% deposit at completion, as I’m sure she won’t mind. But will obviously need to check with the broker whether this is allowed or not 😄