Question about paying a large amount into both a Help to Buy and a regular ISA

Heramia wrote: »

[Also, I don't know if this bares any relevance, but I wasn't entirely sure I was entitled to the HTB in the first place -it was the advisor at Nationwide who assured me I was. I'm in a rather unique position where I have a shared-ownership property but I outright own my share and I've never had a mortgage.

As you've owned an interest in a residential property (either now or at some point previously), you won't qualify to get a bonus on the HTB- which is only available to people who have never owned residential property anywhere in the world.

This doesn't practically speaking stop you opening the HTB ISA account initially or renewing it each year and contining to pay into it, especially if the bank clerk does not know their own documentation - because even if the bank employee did know the rules you could always lie when asked the question about whether you are an eligible customer having been provided with the definitions of eligible customer within the T&C or application form.

However, just because you've got away with it, doesn't mean you should continue to push your luck. One of the conditions to be an eligible customer is that you must never have been a 'Residential Property Owner'. If you read the definitions you can see that you are indeed a residential owner by their definition - you own an interest in a residential property that's either freehold or long leasehold.

This was ok for Nationwide, but there's still a chance that I won't even qualify for HTB as far as the government's concerned by the time I want to buy a place

That's right, you don't qualify for using the HTB bonus on a HTB ISA account that pther 'Eligible Customers' would qualify for.

So, there's no lucrative bonus waiting for you at the end and therefore, no need to keep using the account and the restrictions on how much you can pay in per month. Other than the fact that the interest rate might be reasonable and that the bank and HMRC might not pick up on the fact that you've misrepresented yourself as qualifying to use the account when you actually don't. In practice the worst they will do is close your account to stop you using it - they're not going to throw you in jail. But it would be sensible not to mislead your bank and continue to subscribe to the account if you don't actually qualify to use it and you are going to want them to trust you on something else later in the customer relationship.