Liftetime Isa - Put all £4,000 now for House purchase or too late?

clairec666

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81996911#Comment_81996911

Short version: because I'm an idiot and in hindsight what you suggested would have been a very good idea.

Long version: I had always been sceptical about opening a LISA, because property ownership seemed a long way out of reach (I'm in an expensive area), but opened one with a small amount when I was 39 as it was my last chance. Then within the last year I was in a position where property was affordable, but the LISA had been open less than a year so couldn't be used. As it turns out, I'm still waiting to exchange and could now use my LISA, and if I'd known that I would have maxed it out for the previous tax year. Oh well.

masonic

Unlike Claire, I always had the intention of using my LISA for my first time property purchase, but used a S&S LISA as I had no idea how long that would be (answer almost 10 years).

Over that time I've managed to accumulate £100k with investment growth (and starting it off with a transfer in of legacy HTB ISA funds). Looking at the situation critically, I decided not to use it because the ISA wrapper is more valuable to me than crystallising the bonus now rather than at 60. So I pulled the money out of my Trading212 flexible S&S ISA (thank you HL for hiking your fee and pushing me over there just weeks before my landlord decided he wanted out).

With various fixed term and regular savers maturing over the next 9 months, I have a fighting chance of fully replacing the withdrawn capital. Committing to using the LISA for retirement makes so much more sense in my situation, as I'll end up with virtually all of my savings and investments in tax wrappers, so HMRC can kiss goodbye to the several thousand pounds in savings interest tax they were collecting from me in recent years.