Help To Buy vs Lifetime: Which ISA is best?

Set to be introduced in April 2017, the Lifetime ISA essentially offers an alternative to the Help To Buy ISA. With two competing options on the table, it’s important to know which is best for you and your needs, as whilst they have some similarities, there are also key differences between the two.

The Help To Buy ISA allows you to save up to £200 each month to save for a deposit on your first home. The government then boosts your savings further to the tune of 25% up to a total limit of £3,000, as long as you’re a first time buyer purchasing a property priced up to £450,000 in London and up to £250,000 everywhere else in the UK. There is no minimum deposit each month, and you’re also able to pay in £1,000 when the account is opened that doesn’t count towards your monthly savings.

Available up to Autumn 2019, anyone aged sixteen or over is entitled to open a Help To Buy ISA. The accounts are limited to one per person, which means both people in a couple can have an account and benefit from the bonus.

The new Lifetime ISA is based on similar principles but has several important differences, with the most important being that it can be used either to save for purchasing your first home or as money put away as a pension for later in life. There’s no limit on how much you can save each month as long as you don’t go over the yearly cap of £4,000.

Again, the government offers a 25% bonus, but this is paid whether you use the money to purchase your first home up to a price of £450,000 anywhere in the country, or keep it for later in your life. Any money that’s taken out before your 60th birthday and not used for purchasing your first home will forfeit the government bonus plus any growth or interest earned from it, as well as incurring a 5% charge. If you wait until after you’re 60, you can take out everything tax-free.

As you will be allowed to have both a Lifetime ISA and a Help To Buy ISA, you can choose to do this, but you will only be able to use the bonus from one of the two accounts to buy a home. As the Lifetime ISA is essentially replacing the Help To Buy ISA, it makes sense to opt for the newer style of account after they are introduced next April. If you want to set up an ISA for your child, however, you could consider opening a Help To Buy ISA on their 16th birthday then transferring the savings to a Lifetime ISA two years later which will allow you to take full advantage of the government bonuses.