Lifetime ISAs guide

Plus wrote: »

Do we know the dates for bonus payments? For example, someone who paid in on 6th April 2017 and 6th April 2018. I think the date for the 2017/18 bonus is 'early May', so does that mean 6 April money has its bonus paid in 'early June'?

The short answer to your question is 'yes'.

From this tax year, bonuses are earned in monthly periods running from 6th of one month to 5th of the next month, and the ISA manager claims from the government within 14 days of the end of each such period, with another 14 days anticipated for the claim to be met. So, paying in on 6 April is actually no better than doing so on 5 May (from a bonus perspective, a tiny additional amount of interest will accrue) and the expectation will then be that the funds will arrive by early June.

pink_pirlie wrote: »

I believe they had to submit requests for the bonus before 19th April (according to an email I got from HMRC). What I don’t know if this was with balances on account at close of play 5 April or a later date and therefore include any early payments paid in for 18/19.

Just to be clear, the bonus payment due in early May will indeed be based on the 5 April balance, not anything paid in since then.

pink_pirlie wrote: »

We are withdrawing just our deposits for the purchase and will have to take a 25% hit on the bonus as we couldn’t delay completion for another two weeks until it is paid.

So are you paying a penalty, or just the non-bonus figure? In other words, if you deposited £4000 are you getting £4000 (with no bonus), £3000 (original deposit minus 25%) or £3750 (standard post-bonus penalty: 4000*1.25*0.75)?

I haven!!!8217;t seen it covered on this thread before so I thought I would mention that Skipton told me today via web chat that conveyancers could send then the declaration forms 30 days before your withdrawal date to allow sufficient notice

pink_pirlie wrote: »

We aren’t paying a penalty on the £8000 of our money in the account as we are using that towards a qualifying house purchase.
So we asked to withdraw £7950 - you have to leave £50 in the account in order to keep it open for the bonus to be recived.

As the bonus has not been paid yet if we take this out we will have to pay a penalty when this is withdrawn or leave it in the account until we are 60.
We haven’t requested this as it has not been paid into the account yet. We do not need this for our deposit.

I see... so you would expect £2000 in bonus to arrive later. You can't use it for the house because of the timelines, but you can keep it until you're 60. If you withdraw it after your purchase you lose 25% but only of the withdrawal amount, ie if you wanted to empty the account you would forfeit £500 and withdraw £1500?