First Time House Buyers/ ISA/ Budget

[shipitgood]

If anyone on here is going to be a 1st time house buyer in the next few years, it'll be very worth while checking this out.

It was announced in the budget last week.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/413899/Help_to_Buy_ISA_Guidance.pdf

Cliffs: It's a help to buy ISA (Cash)

It will let you deposit £1000, then £200 per month (max), once it gets to a certain level, the government will give up to £3000 as a bonus when someone goes ahead and purchases their first house.

[Mark_Porter]

I understand that, if you are part of a couple, you can both open one of these ISA's and get the additional bonus.

Does anyone know if the government cares where the money comes from? I.e., my partner opens the ISA, I transfer her the money from my account and she then puts it into the ISA? Effectively it is my money going into two ISA's. I assume that is OK.

There are lots of calculators online that have been confusing me. I am trying to work out how much money I should be spending on a house in line with the deposit I will need so that my mortgage repayments are sensible. Is it best to go into a bank to have this discussion or is there somewhere else to ask?

[Jon MW]

...
Does anyone know if the government cares where the money comes from? I.e., my partner opens the ISA, I transfer her the money from my account and she then puts it into the ISA? Effectively it is my money going into two ISA's. I assume that is OK.
...

We've been looking at it as well, and as far as I can tell that won't be relevant for the ISA but I think there are some tax rules about giving money away as gifts to people though (?)

The relevant part would probably be how much you're allowed to give away without any tax implication - I think it might be a lot higher for transferring to a partner anyway, so hopefully it won't apply either.

EDIT: just checked - for couples it isn't relevant, so no there shouldn't be a problem either way.

[cambridgealex]

Thanks for posting Kev, looks good. I need a help-to-get-a-mortgage scheme as well tho

[BulldozerD]

It might be worth checking the rules before contributing anything to a standard ISA in the new tax year, if you want a H2B ISA in the year

[toddswain]

Yea can't have a normal isa aswell as a help to buy isa, if you do get a normal cash isa won't be able to get a help to buy one until 2016

[cambridgealex]

Not operational till autumn anyway