Lifetime isa question.

How come it is ok for people to offer financial advice on this forum but outside of that field you always get called an 'armchair expert'. I have never heard the term 'armchair accountant' on here lol.
 
I'm just going through the process of transferring my Halifax Help to buy ISA to the Skipton Lifetime ISA.

I've opened the account online, and I had to print off a form to fill in. After it asks how much you want to transfer, it says:

Do you want to transfer current tax year subscriptions in Q5 above as part of this transfer

Yes or No




What does that mean?
 
VincentHanna said:
Never mind - I rang them and apparently I tick yes because I am transferring everything.

In case anyone else ever needs to know.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I opened up a stocks and shares one last year and don't remember anything similar to that. Looking forward to seeing that 25% bump in a couple of months!
 
DJMK4 said:
Hi all.

I have a question. Iv been saving in to a help to buy ISA account since April 2016.

I really should have opened a Lisa in April 2017 but didn't ! If I open one now and transfer my h2b ISA in to a lifetime ISA I'm going to have to wait a year before I can buy?

I completely missed this bit. I don't know why I didn't sign up
Click to expand...

When do you intend to buy?

I'm hoping to buy probably early next year and i've worked out that the LISA isn't really worth it for me.

Example worked as of end of March 2018:

HTB bonus LISA bonus
£1,650 £1,000

If we then add another year of bonus payments, this would be the bonus at the end of March 2019:

HTB bonus LISA bonus
£2,250 £2,000

It's only if i hadn't bought by March 2020, that the LISA bonus starts to become better:

HTB bonus LISA bonus
£2,850 £3,000

But again, all that for the sake of £150, and that almost approaches the max bonus paid about by the HTB ISA.

Also worth mentioning that the LISA interest rates that i've come across are awful, i don't know how long Halifax intends to keep my HTB ISA at 3.5% for, but the interest earned is likely to narrow that 3rd year gap.

So the ultimate question is really when do you intend to buy.
 
Due to my location, LISA is my only real option.

HTB 'only' lets you buy a property for up to £250,000 and sadly that barely gets me a tiny 2 bedroom terraced house here in Chelmsford.
 
Deciding to start this up and convert my help to buy to this. I can save 400+ per month. Which is loss against the help to buy
 
Yeh
Semple said:
When do you intend to buy?

I'm hoping to buy probably early next year and i've worked out that the LISA isn't really worth it for me.

Example worked as of end of March 2018:

HTB bonus LISA bonus
£1,650 £1,000

If we then add another year of bonus payments, this would be the bonus at the end of March 2019:

HTB bonus LISA bonus
£2,250 £2,000

It's only if i hadn't bought by March 2020, that the LISA bonus starts to become better:

HTB bonus LISA bonus
£2,850 £3,000

But again, all that for the sake of £150, and that almost approaches the max bonus paid about by the HTB ISA.

Also worth mentioning that the LISA interest rates that i've come across are awful, i don't know how long Halifax intends to keep my HTB ISA at 3.5% for, but the interest earned is likely to narrow that 3rd year gap.

So the ultimate question is really when do you intend to buy.
Click to expand...

I'm going to stick with the help to buy ISA to be honest. I don't see why they couldn't come out with the lifetime ISA product in the first place as I want to buy within this year.
 
VincentHanna said:
Squeaky bum time.

Lifetime ISA transfer - It dissapeared from my Halifax account yesterday but my Skipton account says £0 balance.
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This happened to my Natwst HTB -> Skipton LISA. From when the balance disappeared from my HTB it took approximately 1 week to show in my Skipton online account :). Apparently banks still use good old fashion cheque to transfer :o.
 
Hey guys,

Got about 4.5k in my HTB ISA. I can afford to put away a lot more than the £200 limit, around 1k a month at the moment. I realistically wont be buying for 18mths. Is it best to transfer this to a LISA?

Cheers
 
VincentHanna said:
Squeaky bum time.

Lifetime ISA transfer - It dissapeared from my Halifax account yesterday but my Skipton account says £0 balance.
Click to expand...
Transferred mine 3 weeks ago happened to me but was told upto 4 week's to show. That said it took 2 which is still a fair while of zero money showing.

As for htb v Lisa for me personally in terms of buying a first house the Skipton ISA was a no brainer. I put a pound in last October so can buy a house this year. Just make sure you top it up to the maximum 4k per year before april to maximise the gains.
 
DJMK4 said:
Hi all.

I have a question. Iv been saving in to a help to buy ISA account since April 2016.

I really should have opened a Lisa in April 2017 but didn't ! If I open one now and transfer my h2b ISA in to a lifetime ISA I'm going to have to wait a year before I can buy?

I completely missed this bit. I don't know why I didn't sign up
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat, had H2B open with a potential of ~£1k gov contributions. Essentially yes, you will have to wait a year.
I am going to keep feeding my H2B until the LISA is usable, then transfer. I'd rather lose a potential £1k from the LISA than lose out on the ability to use the H2B funds if a place comes up.

VincentHanna said:
Squeaky bum time.

Lifetime ISA transfer - It dissapeared from my Halifax account yesterday but my Skipton account says £0 balance.
Click to expand...
It will take some time. I was told it could take around 4 working weeks. Also told not to wait on the H2B bonus coming in March in case the funds didn't clear to Skipton before the end of that month.
 
Moses said:
Transfer last year's subscriptions, save into a regular savings account, keep paying into the Help to Buy ISA (as you can still get the good interest rate even if you don't use the bonus), and max out the LISA before the end of each tax year.
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Sorry mate, can you break it down a little further for me.

So transfer everything from my HTB (up to 4k anyway?) to LISA
Continue putting in £200 a month to HTB

Then just put away 4k a year in the LISA until I am ready to buy?
 
You can transfer the full HTB ISA amount and anything paid in to it until April 2017 doesn't count as part of your £4,000 contribution in to the LISA

So for instance I am transferring approx £6,600 from my Halifax HTB ISA to the Skipton LISA and before the end of this tax year I will also dump another £2000 from my Santander current account in to the Skipton LISA
 
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VincentHanna said:
You can transfer the full HTB ISA amount and it doesn't count as part of your £4,000 contribution in to the LISA

So for instance I am transferring approx £6,600 from my Halifax HTB ISA to the Skipton LISA and before the end of this tax year I will also dump another £4000 from my Santander current account in to the Skipton LISA
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I was told the opposite.

e.g
transfer 3k, you can add another 1k for that year
transfer 5k, over the limit so nothing more can be added.
 
You can transfer a Help to Buy ISA into a LISA, but if you're going to, do it soon to max the benefits
If you've decided the Lifetime ISA's a better bet for you than the Help to Buy ISA, you'll need to get a move on to transfer your Help to Buy ISA in before the end of the tax year. Transfers are an area many find confusing so let's try to break it down a little...

  • Transfer a Help to Buy ISA into a LISA by 5 April 2018 and a special rule means you get the bonus on BOTH. Transfer your Help to Buy ISA into a LISA by 5 April and you'll get the bonus on that, as well as this year's LISA savings.

    Special case if you've a Skipton LISA.If you opened a Skipton cash LISA, you need to have started a transfer in of your Help to Buy ISA by 1 March 2018 to be able to do it in the 2017/18 tax year.

    The special rule means that, for any Help to Buy ISAs transferred into LISAs by 5 April 2018, all the money you had saved in the Help to Buy ISA up until 5 April 2017 counts as 'extra' and qualifies for a bonus, along with up to £4,000 you put in your LISA in the 2017/18 tax year.

    Just to be clear – anything you've saved this tax year, 2017/18, in your Help to Buy ISA WILL count towards this year's £4,000 LISA limit if it's then transferred in. For example, if you put £1,000 in your Help to Buy ISA this tax year, so on or after 6 April 2017, and you're about to transfer it into a LISA, you'll only be able to add £3,000 more to your LISA. See how this works in practice.

    The bonus will be added a few weeks after the end of the 2017/18 tax year (so around the start of May 2018).
 
One thing to be aware of - when I transferred my existing LISA and HTB ISAs into Skipton they initially worked things out wrong and thought I'd used up my allowance for the year. Be sure you check this if you transfer so you don't miss out on any bonuses.
 
Moses said:
No, transfer last year’s contributions from the Help to But ISA to the LISA. Leave this year’s in there, if you can put an additional £4K into the LISA to use up this year’s limit. There’s an option on the form to do that. Only transfer the full amount if you don’t have separate cash spare to max out the LISA this year.

But yeah, then continue to max out the LISA near the end of each tax year (but during the year save it up in accounts with higher interest rates). Keeping the help to buy open is sensible as you can get 3.5% with it... well, I can, I don’t know if the rate’s worse for people who opened after me. Personally I’m saving into my help to buy isa and a first direct regular saver on top of maxing out the LISA.
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So move £2400 from HTB to LISA now, then put an additional 4k in LISA (transfer from savings). I wasn't aware that transferring didnt count towards the 4k limit of the LISA. Then just continue to max out the LISA (4k again next year) ?
My HTB is with Halifax at 2.25%.

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to get my head around it.
 
Moses said:
When did you open your help to buy isa?

Anything you’ve put into the help to buy isa this year would count towards the limit. Anything from before 17/18 wouldn’t. So eg. I recently transferred £3800 to my LISA but can add another £4k. I’ve left my 17/18 contributions in the isa because I get a good interest rate. I’m talking about transferring in, of course - don’t withdraw the cash from the isa and pay it into the Lisa... use the transfer option on the skipton website.
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Are you saying that only H2B contributions from year 16/17 and prior can be transferred into the LISA without affecting the limit? You have to leave the 17/18 contributions in there until the next year? I didn't know you could break it up like that.
 
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