Help to Buy ISA guide
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Hi everyone,
My sincere apologies if this has already been asked elsewhere on this thread.
My question is on combining both options where the caps are different. ISA with £450k and Equity Loan with £600k cap for a London property.
Which cap applies in this case? I presume its £450k but can anyone confirm?0 -
thebongoking wrote: »I'm hoping someone might be able to advise me on the below.
I have the Nationwide Split ISA (Cash ISA @ 0.5% interest and HTB ISA @ 1.5% interest). I have approx £4600 in the HTB ISA part and approx £15k in the Cash ISA part. I have only paid into the HTB ISA this tax year so the £15k balance is from previous years. I want to move these amounts to new ISA but because of the special "split" status of the Nationwide ISA I'm a bit confused as to how they are treated when transferring out.
Can I do the following:
> Transfer the HTB part to Barclays HTB ISA (2.27% interest) - they allow transfers in
> Transfer the Cash ISA part to a Coventry Building Society Cash ISA (1.1% interest) - they allow transfers in
I will only be paying ISA money into the HTB ISA for the rest of the tax year.
I already have 2 Tesco current accounts (3% interest), 1 TSB Classic Plus current account (3% interest) and 1 Nationwide Flexdirect current account (5% interest) with the maximum amounts in each and I don't have enough direct debits to satisfy opening a Santander, Bank of Scotland, Club Lloyds account hence me going for the Coventry Building Society Cash ISA option (best easy access option with flexibility).
Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give!
You can of course transfer both ISAs to different providers – they are separate accounts.
The one advantage with Nationwide is they allow you to fund your HTB isa with prior year ISA transfers. So you could fund your monthly £200 for the HTB isa from the £15k cash isa (or whatever you leave if you do a partial transfer) – rather than investing £200 new which you could invest elsewhere.
Depends what is most useful to you. But it certainly makes sense to be earning 1.05% rather than 0.5% on your £15k – the benefit of an extra 0.25% on your HTB isa is more marginal for the effort.0 -
I have bought an off plan flat in July this year (2017), which is not due to be completed until Q3 2018. I had to put down £1000 holding deposit and then had to pay the remaining 10% of the purchase price within 21days. Due to the short timeframe my parents loaned me the money, with the intension of paying them back on completion (although I have access to the full amount repay them now). It makes sense to leave the money in my accounts to gain some interest as I will not be moving in for a year or so.
It has now occurred to me how I will gain the 25% bonus from my help to buy ISA if the deposit has already been paid?
Any ideas?0 -
alexwilson30 wrote: »I have bought an off plan flat in July this year (2017), which is not due to be completed until Q3 2018. I had to put down £1000 holding deposit and then had to pay the remaining 10% of the purchase price within 21days. Due to the short timeframe my parents loaned me the money, with the intension of paying them back on completion (although I have access to the full amount repay them now). It makes sense to leave the money in my accounts to gain some interest as I will not be moving in for a year or so.
It has now occurred to me how I will gain the 25% bonus from my help to buy ISA if the deposit has already been paid?
Any ideas?
Your solicitor claims the bonus between exchange and completion - you have not completed yet and wont until October next year so have plenty of time. The fact you have placed a reservation on a property with a holding deposit doesn't affect this.
What you should do is discuss this with your solicitor and ensure they are signed up as a registered conveyancer for the scheme. And keep paying into the ISA as you should be able to accrue another £600 in bonus by paying in £200 a month for another year.0 -
Hello, I've been gifted with a lump sum to go towards a mortgage. If I put the max amount for the year in a help to buy ISA, does anyone have any advice for the remaining cash?Thanks!0
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If you're likely to be buying in over a year (and are between 18 and 39) then it would be worth using a Lifetime ISA instead as you can pay £4K in between now and 5 April 2018 and another £4K on or after 6 April 2018, whereas with a HTB ISA you can only pay in £1200 in the first month and then £200 per month thereafter.MaryanneCS wrote: »Hello, I've been gifted with a lump sum to go towards a mortgage. If I put the max amount for the year in a help to buy ISA, does anyone have any advice for the remaining cash?Thanks!
Much depends on the size of your lump sum though, but read through https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/which-saving-account for further ideas.0 -
Me and my other half have exchanged contracts oh a property and we are completing tomorrow. One of our isa bonuses was declined by the government. This was because 2 isas were open by the same person at the same time. I had a htb isa open which had no money in then when i moved banks i closed the isa and reopened with new bank. i was told by the bank that by doing this i was still entitled to the bonus as i had never saved in a htb and used the money for a property before and now it has come to getting the bonus , (which should have been £1800ish) it has been declined. i am confused as to why this has happened?0
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It is confusing - if you'd opened a HTB ISA on the day they were launched and contributed the maximum into it ever since you'd now have £5,600 plus a bit of interest, which would give a bonus of no more than about £1,450, so I can't follow how you'd have expected £1,800?Me and my other half have exchanged contracts oh a property and we are completing tomorrow. One of our isa bonuses was declined by the government. This was because 2 isas were open by the same person at the same time. I had a htb isa open which had no money in then when i moved banks i closed the isa and reopened with new bank. i was told by the bank that by doing this i was still entitled to the bonus as i had never saved in a htb and used the money for a property before and now it has come to getting the bonus , (which should have been £1800ish) it has been declined. i am confused as to why this has happened?
Anyway, I suspect that you fell foul of the rules about opening a second one, which has to wait until a subsequent tax year, as required by the HTB rules to avoid more than one being open at the same time (i.e. in the same tax year):
If this doesn't sound plausible, post more details about exactly what you opened, closed and contributed and when, and perhaps someone will be able to shed more light on it....If I close my account, can I open a new Help to Buy: ISA?
If you hold a Help to Buy: ISA, and close it without claiming your government bonus, you can open a new account in the following tax year (provided the new account is opened before 30 November 2019).0 -
Sorry if this has been asked already but I am having trouble finding anything about this so far. Basically my partner and I have been saving in our separate HTB ISA's via Halifax for over 2 years so we now have £4000 each. We are now in the later stages of buying our 1st house and have our mortgage offer sorted with a 5% deposit which equates to £6500ish. So now we are wondering do we take out money from our HTB ISA accounts so that overall we have exactly 6500 between us for deposit and the bonus from the account would be returned to us after completion or should we keep the full £8000 in them between us and therefore get a bigger bonus - would this work and would we benefit cash-wise from this or would it just go towards the mortgage and we wouldn't see the bonus anyway?
My understanding is that the bonus is only paid on the deposit and if our deposit is £6500 we would get the bonus on that but if we put the full 8000 up would we get a few hundred pounds more?
Apologies if any of this is confusing - happy to provide more info.0 -
Surely if you have £8K in the HTB ISAs, which would be enhanced to £10K with the government bonus if used correctly, it would be worth putting down all £10K towards the property, and reduce the size of your mortgage accordingly by the £3,500 difference, otherwise you're essentially missing out on free money?
The bonus isn't "returned to [you] after completion", it's provided immediately before completion in order to be used towards the property value, although anecdotally some conveyancers are willing to blur this a bit in practice, so worth checking with yours what your options are.0
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