Help to buy ISA bonus

Thaisparrow

Hi, 

I hope a mortgage broker or someone may have experience with how the help to buy bonus works, I know this part is done by the solicitor when completing but just wanted to check beforehand. 

My partner and I are purchasing a property from a grandmother for market price. We are both first time buyers and have £9000 and £9200 respectively in separate HTB ISA’s, this should mean a total bonus of £4550. 

As we are buying from his grandmother, we want to just put 10% deposit down on the £170k house and when it comes to exchange she is happy for us to put the £17k deposit minus the £4550 isa bonus at the exchange point and then when we put down the mortgage deposit the bonus could be used or we could use the remainder and have the bonus paid back to us?

wondering whether this is actually possible as we have the deposit anyway but would rather have the extra £4ish for home improvements. 

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!