Lifetime isa question.

VincentHanna · 8 Mar 2018 at 16:20

I'm being dense - I have £6500ish from Halifax HTB transfer and will pay in the remaining 2K allowance of this tax year by the end of March so I will have that as well

VincentHanna · 8 Mar 2018 at 16:25

Question: I set one up for my fiancée, because she's not great at that sort of thing but I paid the £1 from my own debit card when I opened it.

Will this cause any issues?

413x · 8 Mar 2018 at 16:39

VincentHanna said:
I'm being dense - I have £6500ish from Halifax HTB transfer and will pay in the remaining 2K allowance of this tax year by the end of March so I will have that as well

Same as me. Exactly same amount.

I've kept the remaining 2k in my help to buy and I'm not closing it as it's such (relative) a great isa rate. And it has no penalty for extraction.

VincentHanna · 8 Mar 2018 at 16:50

I stupidly closed mine, I had 3.5%

413x · 8 Mar 2018 at 17:10

VincentHanna said:
Question: I set one up for my fiancée, because she's not great at that sort of thing but I paid the £1 from my own debit card when I opened it.

Will this cause any issues?

VincentHanna said:
I stupidly closed mine, I had 3.5%

Yes, that's why I've kept mine. I need to see if I can add more than 200 ppm to it. As now it's effectively just a cash isa. I dunno.
But that 3.5pc will be worth about 100 quid come year end. More than the lowly 0.75 on Lisa!

VincentHanna · 16 Mar 2018 at 13:09

Just got this email:

Your government bonus payment

Click to expand...

We’ve been informed by HMRC that your 2017/18 Lifetime ISA bonus will be paid by 4 May 2018. You’ll start earning interest on it from the date it arrives. We’ll email you when the bonus has been added to your account so there’s no need to keep checking.

Your current £4,000 Lifetime ISA allowance runs until 5 April so, if you haven’t already saved the full amount, you can still pay in up to this date. Then anything you save from 6 April 2018 onwards will be part of your new allowance.

So are they going to pay out the 25% bonus based on exactly what's in your account by 5th April? Or can you cheat the system, pay in another £4000 before 4th May and get the bonus on that too?

413x · 16 Mar 2018 at 14:20

VincentHanna said:
Just got this email:

So are they going to pay out the 25% bonus based on exactly what's in your account by 5th April? Or can you cheat the system, pay in another £4000 before 4th May and get the bonus on that too?

I also just got this.
I didn' rrealise the bonus gets paid every year? Is that what I'm reading?

I assumed you got 25pc of what ever was in your Lisa when it came to buying a house.
Not a 25pc bonus every year?

VincentHanna · 16 Mar 2018 at 14:21

Seems that way doesn't it?

I assumed you only got it at the point you were buying a house.

But I guess this way is easier.

413x · 16 Mar 2018 at 14:24

VincentHanna said:
Seems that way doesn't it?

I assumed you only got it at the point you were buying a house.

But I guess this way is easier.

I'm guessing you only get the bonus on the years additions?

So next year when I have 12k in there it won't be 25 pc of 12k but the 4 I put in that year?

mrbazmondo · 16 Mar 2018 at 17:37

Correct. Unless you're 40 then you're not allowed to put any in.

VincentHanna · 19 Mar 2018 at 13:22

413x said:
I'm guessing you only get the bonus on the years additions?

So next year when I have 12k in there it won't be 25 pc of 12k but the 4 I put in that year?

I went on to Twitter (which I rarely use) to contact Martin Lewis, and Skipton ended up replying to my tweet

Hi Gary, the bonus for the 17/18 tax year will be calculated from the balance as of the 5th of April which will be paid within the first 28 days of the new tax year.

From the 2018/19 tax year onwards, HMRC will pay the bonus based on the contributions you have made each month. This will be paid by HMRC within 4-9 weeks.

I said: "Thanks. Does that mean that it doesn't really matter if you pay a 4k lump sum or £333.33 a month, you will receive the same bonus?"

They replied:

That's right, it's entirely your choice in how you decide to pay in. You will receive the same amount as a bonus regardless, as long as there is £4000 in the account before the end of the tax year either way.

In which case I won't be doing an early lump sum as that money can earn more in my Santander account. In fact I might not pay the 2018/19 LISA allowance in until the end of that tax year (again).

Scam · 19 Mar 2018 at 14:30

Hmn interesting. I'll have to double check my Metro ISA to compare then. I was all ready to move £4k from that into my LISA, as soon as the new tax year started.

413x · 19 Mar 2018 at 15:47

Thanks for the info! I assumed based on a few days ago it was better to put 4k in at the start.
Because of the paltry interest seems better to dump that 4k as late as possible

So 4k from help to buy
4k for this tax year
Another 4k next march

One thing that scuppers some. Ideas is I thought the bonus was paid on cash in.
So this means I can't add 4k in April 10th 2019 and claim that bonus on the total as bonus is being paid. Month on month.

It makes. Sense, but I was optimistically hoping to get the bonus on whatever was in at time of cash in.

So it's actually quite close to being more worth while to Continue the help to buy rather than this Lisa if buying in 1 year.

Thanks goodness I didn't close my help to buy.

Q. Does anyone still have their Halifax cash help to buy..

What I want to do is see if I can treat my help to buy as a cash isa now and put more than 200ppm in.
As it pays 3.5pc.
But I'm not sure as it is help to buy by label.
But I'm not using it for help to buy purposes.

byeo · 21 Mar 2018 at 07:03

I wasn't aware that I could open a LISA and regular Cash ISA in the same year until the other day. I quickly opened a LISA via Skipton and have transferred £4000 into it so hopefully I should get the £1000 bonus paid in on April 6th. What happens in year 18/19 as the bonus is paid monthly, do I need to pay £333.33 p/m to get the full £1000 ?

TeraVirus · 22 Mar 2018 at 21:04

byeo said:
I wasn't aware that I could open a LISA and regular Cash ISA in the same year until the other day. I quickly opened a LISA via Skipton and have transferred £4000 into it so hopefully I should get the £1000 bonus paid in on April 6th. What happens in year 18/19 as the bonus is paid monthly, do I need to pay £333.33 p/m to get the full £1000 ?

I did the same as you and I'm thinking of paying a lump sum of 4k before the end of every tax year.

VincentHanna · 27 Apr 2018 at 12:50

Mine and my fiancée's bonuses were paid today. Nice.

413x · 27 Apr 2018 at 15:55

VincentHanna said:
Mine and my fiancée's bonuses were paid today. Nice.

My bonus was paid today also.
2072 which give or take 10 is I think the max.

Ill dump 4k in at end of this tax year

Robi · 27 Apr 2018 at 16:08

Alongside a bunch of other accounts, I've been saving the maximum into a HTB ISA since day 1. I'm planning to buy during the first half of 2019, at which point I should receive a bonus of £2,250 from said ISA. Little point switching to a LISA now as the bonus will be lower and I can't open both concurrently right?

413x · 27 Apr 2018 at 16:17

Robi said:
Alongside a bunch of other accounts, I've been saving the maximum into a HTB ISA since day 1. I'm planning to buy during the first half of 2019, at which point I should receive a bonus of £2,250 from said ISA. Little point switching to a LISA now as the bonus will be lower and I can't open both concurrently right?

You can't get the bonus on both. So yeah max bonus on Lisa now would be 2000 if you were buying in 12 months
1000 in 11 months.
Stick with HTB

Robi · 27 Apr 2018 at 17:25

413x said:
You can't get the bonus on both. So yeah max bonus on Lisa now would be 2000 if you were buying in 12 months
1000 in 11 months.
Stick with HTB

Thanks!