get our money-saving tips and top offers direct to your inbox with the mirror money newsletter invalid email something went wrong, please try again later. sign up thank you for subscribing we have more newsletters show me see our privacy notice “if you are saving to buy your first home, save money into a help to buy: isa and the government will boost your savings by 25%.” that's what it says at the top of the official government help to buy page . if you're a first time buyer, our help to buy: isa could really help you get your foot on the property ladder. it's designed to take advantage of the help to buy scheme, to boost your savings towards a deposit by 25% for your first home, halifax's help to buy isa page reads. it sounds fantastic, offering people struggling to raise a deposit up to £3,000 extra towards the purchase of their own home. there's just one problem – it doesn't actually increase the deposit you pay the seller when you buy a home. why they just don't work like we were told image: getty the devil is in the detail – in this case a clause in the deal, aimed at stopping people getting government cash without bothering to buy a home. the problem is that it also means that the money you have been promised can't be accessed until after you buy. consumers have been putting money aside on the basis that they believed it would be applied to their deposit on a new home; to now clarify that it is not actually available until completion is the perfect example of a painful lack of transparency and frankly nothing short of deception, said mark hayward, managing director, national association of estate agents. effectively, this means the 500,000 people who've taken out the savings products will get no help to buy at all until the house purchase is completed - and will have to cover the entire deposit passed on to the seller when contracts are exchanged themselves. first-time buyers are already struggling with getting on to the housing ladder and this much hyped initiative was welcomed at the time as a way of helping them, but in fact could have ended up costing buyers if they have gone ahead with a purchase believing that the bonus counted towards the deposit,” hayward added. in the wake of the revelations – first printed in the daily telegraph - the government heavily updated its help to buy page. “when you buy your first home, your solicitor or conveyancer will apply for your government bonus. once they receive the government bonus, it will be added to the money you are putting towards your first home,” the page read in april this year . the same section now reads: “when you are close to buying your first home, you will need to instruct your solicitor or conveyancer to apply for your government bonus. once they receive the government bonus, it will be added to the money you are putting towards your first home. the bonus must be included with the funds consolidated at the completion of the property transaction. the bonus cannot be used for the deposit due at the exchange of contracts, to pay for solicitor’s, estate agent’s fees or any other indirect costs associated with buying a home.” poll loading should help to buy isas be re-named? 0+ votes so far yes no is it good for anything then? the silver lining for people who've taken out one of these products to help them buy a home is that you do, still, get the cash and it can be used to lighten the load of your mortgage repayments. that's because while useless in increasing the size of your deposit, the money can be accessed once the property has been bought and used lower your mortgage balance. that means they can count to the deposit as far as the mortgage lender is concerned, just not as far as the seller is concerned. the mirror has also spoken to people who found the offer of the bonus incentivised them to save more regularly than they had been before thanks to the promise of a 25% boost. but if you were looking for actual help to buy a home in the form of extra money towards a deposit to pay the seller, this isn't the product for you – despite the name.
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