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"Legal Guide”

How To Make The most Of Your Help To Buy Scheme

Government Help to Buy ISA explained

On the 1st December 2015 the Government introduced a Help to Buy ISA specially designed to help first time buyers save up for a deposit. So how does it work? You can start your Help to Buy ISA with an initial deposit of up to £1000 then every month after you can deposit up to £200 a month. Once your Help to Buy ISA account has reached the minimum amount to receive the government bonus you can let cash our your account if you are ready to purchase a property, the minimum amount that you can cash out is £1,600 and you will receive a 25% bonus FREE from the government which equals £400.

So money for free? Really?!

For every £200 that you deposit into your Help to Buy ISA the government will contribute £50. The maximum that you can save in this account is £12,000.00 and then the government would contribute £3,000.00! Don’t forget this can be doubled up if you are buying with a partner or another first time buyer with the same account. You can’t really get any better than that. This account works the same as a normal savings account so you are able to access this at any point either online or in branch. You can also take funds out of your account if you are short on cash one month. It is not recommended though as you can only put £200 in a month so this will take you longer to make the funds back up.

So how do you get this bonus from the government?

Your Solicitor will do this for you once you are in a position to purchase a property. You simply go to the bank, close your account and send over the closing statement to your solicitor. They take it from there, as easy as that!