Help to Buy ISA with Barclays Bank

Robocop35

Hi,

I have the maximum of £12,000 saved with Barclays in a Help To Buy ISA, which I was saving into each month since 2019.  I am supposed to get £3,000 bonus from the Government if and when I am able to try and buy a house which is not looking very likely any time soon.

Is this still the case, or will that bonus will be cancelled by the Government as they are changing the LISA?

I am only getting just over 1% interest on the monies as well which is poor and a waste of time.

I would be grateful for anyone's opinion on whether I should leave the account alone or just close it and put the monies into an instant access account instead

Many thanks
James

Barkin

I believe you're good for the bonus until Nov 2030. Moving the money elsewhere, it'll take until then before the interest earned will exceed £3k.

Are you likely to buy a <£250k property before then?

If you do decide to keep it open, although new HTB ISA's aren't a thing, some providers still allow transfers in which could at least double your current interest rate.

Robocop35

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.  I don't know whether I will be able to buy a property before then at this stage.  I could do with house prices coming down which I know wont happen.

I know the best chance I have in buying a property is to move up north where prices are cheaper than the South.

Thanks
James

eskbanker

Robocop35 said:

I have the maximum of £12,000 saved with Barclays in a Help To Buy ISA, which I was saving into each month since 2019.  I am supposed to get £3,000 bonus from the Government if and when I am able to try and buy a house which is not looking very likely any time soon.

Is this still the case, or will that bonus will be cancelled by the Government as they are changing the LISA?

Just to be clear, there was no mention of HTB ISA in the budget, so no reason to believe that anything will change for the product, which is separate from LISA.

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't any commitment to a completion date for the 2026 LISA review but you might be best sitting tight (in a better-paying HTB ISA if possible) for now, and wait to see what's on the table after that.

Neil_Jones

Robocop35 said:

Hi,

I have the maximum of £12,000 saved with Barclays in a Help To Buy ISA, which I was saving into each month since 2019.  I am supposed to get £3,000 bonus from the Government if and when I am able to try and buy a house which is not looking very likely any time soon.

Is this still the case, or will that bonus will be cancelled by the Government as they are changing the LISA?

I am only getting just over 1% interest on the monies as well which is poor and a waste of time.

I would be grateful for anyone's opinion on whether I should leave the account alone or just close it and put the monies into an instant access account instead

Many thanks
James

There is no "maximum" you can keep in the HTB ISA, as it is effectively a Cash ISA in new packaging with a lower limit.

You can feed this with as much as you want subject to those limits of £200 a month, but you will only get a maximum bonus of £3000 in due course, plus the interest is tax free as per ISA rules.

As Help to Buy ISAs are no longer available and haven't been since 2019, all you can do is move them around.  But tthe options are limited: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/help-to-buy-isa/ suggest you only get a decent amount of interest on the first £12k, and typically 1% above that. 

Somebody who signed up to this from the start and constantly fed it (especially when the interest rates on them wiped the floor with the rest of the market) would probably have somewhere around £26k in their H2B Isa, which also attracts 1% being a legacy product which is about £350 a year due to the power of compound interest.

As H2B is effectively a regular saver in ISA wrapping if you were to feed it £200 a month from scratch (not that this is possible now) it would generate you about £40 interest.  However I suspect you may have to transfer a H2B ISA in full rather than part so you're not actually gaining anything so you'll be over the £12k for any decent amount of interest.

TL;DR - stay where you are H2B wise.