Help to Buy ISA

Lin2812

My Son is buying his first property and was told by his conveyancer to close the HTB ISA so that the funds and bonus will be available for the purchase of his property.  He has now been told by the Halifax that because he has done this he has lost the bonus.  He closed the account online and should have gone into a branch. He is devastated, years of saving have gone into this.  The Halifax will not allow him to pay the money back in.  Does anyone know if he can appeal?

Mark_d

https://www.gov.uk/help-to-buy-isa

According to this page the conveyancer applies for the 25% bonus

Mark_d

According to Halifax website

https://www.halifax.co.uk/isas/cash-isas/help-to-buy-isa.html

"When you’re ready to buy your first home, close your Help to Buy: ISA in branch in one transaction. You can then claim the bonus with your conveyancer. If you can't get to a branch, you can also close your account with a written request. If you withdraw the money without closing the account, you cannot claim any bonus on the amount taken out."

masonic

If an amount is withdrawn before the account is closed, then this wouldn't form part of the closing balance. However, if he requested the account was closed without making a withdrawal, I don't see what the problem would be as the closing statement should show the final balance eligible for bonus. I think we need some clarity on exactly what steps were taken online. It would be also worth checking these criteria (particularly having a current account with the same brand to transfer the funds to):

A long time ago, when the Lifetime ISA launched, I did an ISA transfer into it. Even though I did that, Halifax still sent me a closing statement that I could have used to claim the bonus.

Whereas, recently I had a Halifax regular saver mature into an Easy Access Saver. When I tried to close it, I got an error message and it wouldn't let me do it until I'd transferred out the balance to another account (to reduce the balance below £5). If this also happened to your son, then that would explain why he's been told he's lost the bonus.

eskbanker

Lin2812 said:

He closed the account online and should have gone into a branch.

As above, the product documentation is clear that closure needs to be in branch in order to qualify for the bonus, but, given that, I'd expect online closure to be either prevented or heavily caveatted with warnings - he didn't happen to capture any screenshots, etc, by any chance?

Lin2812

Thanks, no there was nothing to say "are you sure you want to do this as you may lose your bonus", he would have stopped if there had been

Lin2812

Thanks for the comments, they are helpful.  I guess we just can't believe he can lose the result of all that hard saving so easily!  No warnings, no check, no message to say "if you are doing this to claim your contribution to a property you will need to ............"  just three grand down the drain for a simple mistake. 

masonic

Lin2812 said:

Thanks for the comments, they are helpful.  I guess we just can't believe he can lose the result of all that hard saving so easily!  No warnings, no check, no message to say "if you are doing this to claim your contribution to a property you will need to ............"  just three grand down the drain for a simple mistake. 

It would be worth clarifying whether or not he withdrew money from the HTB ISA to bring the balance below £5 before requesting closure online. If not, there still might be a slim avenue of complaint based on the text I screenshotted in my earlier post, which suggests online closure is possible for a HTB ISA if he had a balance of less than £15,000 and a Halifax current account to receive the funds. In this case an ISA closure statement used to claim the bonus should have been provided.