Gift from Dad and Help to Buy ISA

[Hjb2410]

Hello

I’m looking for some advise

Myself and my husband are purchasing a property and my dad is giving us a gift as part of our deposit. Made my solicitor and mortgage advisor aware and everything is fine.

Now my solicitor has told me that my dad needs to transfer the gift to my account but I don’t think the right advise? Does anyone have any experience or advice in situations like this?

Also I have a help to buy isa, now my solicitor is telling me that having to transfer the money from my isa and get the government bonus is going to take time and possibly delay us exchanging and completing. Does anyone have any experience with help to buy ISA’s?

I am going to go in to the bank and speak to my solicitor but wanted to be armed with some advice before speaking to them :)

Thank you in advance!

When we had a gift as a deposit from my parents, that had to be transferred to our account first, then we transferred it to the solicitors. I can’t remember the exact reason but it definitely had to be done like that.

Yes your dad will need to transfer into your account. Solicitors will most likely ask for him to sign a waiver saying he has no claim on the property it is used towards.

Same for me, it had to be in my account, then to the solicitors for the deposit on completion/exchange. My solicitor also had to draw up a document for my parents to sign to say it wasn’t a loan and that I wasn’t paying it back, as ‘you can’t borrow to borrow’.

@PurpleDaisies @Artistic @LittlemissF

Thank you for your messages
Is my dad just able to make a bank transfer of the amount into my account?
Do the bank query a large amount of money being transferred?
Does it need to be transferred into the account which holds our deposit too?

Any experience with help to buy isa’s?

Thank you for your help and sorry for all the questions!

Yes, he can just transfer it to your babk account. It shouldn’t be a problem but I’d talk to your bank anyway. It’s probably easier to transfer it to wherever your deposit is because then you can just do a single transfer to the solicitor once you’ve exchanged. It depends on the type of account you’re using though. I just used our current account but we had funds from the sale of our first house that just stayed with the solicitor.

What purple daisy says. Good luck and congrats

With the Help to Buy ISA you have to close the account and ask the bank for a letter that you give to the solicitor who then applies to the government for the bonus. This is not an instantaneous process, so may slow you down if you're close to exchange.

Regarding transferring the money - how to transfer it depends on how much it. There is a limit on the amount of money that personal accounts can transfer per day (usually between 10 and 50k). If the amount is higher than this you'll either need to do it over several days or your dad can arrange a CHAPs transfer. There is a charge for CHAPs - your bank can advise. Also watch how much money you have in any one account

Oops, posted too soon. The FSCS protects 85k per person per institution, so holding more than this with a single bank may leave you unprotected (although chances of a problem are admittedly small)

Thank you all for your advice I phoned the bank today and explained what I need advise/ help with and they managed to book me an appointment for tomorrow afternoon! Thanks again :)

As pp says you close the help to buy and get a letter from the bank confirming the closing balance. That money is paid into your account.
You then give the letter to the solicitors to claim the 'bonus' from the government, this is the part that takes time so if things are on a tight schedule you may be able to negotiate that bonus as a refund or to pay your solicitors fees but you need to be able to pay all your deposit up front. IYSWIM.

Help to buy can take time even without your deposit being in a isa.
I think you need to wait for the ATE to come through (authority to exchange) at around the same time the money from the isa needs to be released.
Also the gift from your dad will need to come from your account as your lender and HTB will have asked for proof of funds. Often the bank will ask for a letter to say that the deposit is gifted and not being loaned.