The home exchange deposit: During the process of buying a property, after your offer is accepted, once you've checked everything out you normally exchange contracts with the seller. At this point the seller will usually ask you to put down a 10% deposit (sometimes it can be negotiated lower to 5%) to secure the property. After that no one else can trump you as you and the vendor are committed to the sale.

You then have time to work through your finances and any other issues towards completion, which is when you and the mortgage company hand over the remainder of the cash (see Buying a Home Timeline for more).

While you can use the money you've saved in a Help to Buy ISA towards this exchange, it's only at completion that you receive the mortgage money and Help to Buy ISA bonus – so the bonus won't help towards the home exchange deposit.

So if you're relying on the Help to Buy ISA bonus to get you to 10% (or indeed only have a 5% deposit in total), it could be a problem. However, in most cases, it'll be worth trying to negotiate with the seller (probably via your solicitor) on this.

Be honest with them about the Help to Buy ISA bonus. If the seller wants the sale to go through, they could agree to a lower deposit (possibly with the right to chase you in court for the full 10% if you later pull out).

But according to brokers we've spoken to, as long as you are upfront about your reliance on the Help to Buy ISA bonus, it shouldn't be a major issue. Most vendors are unlikely to pull out of a sale because of a small shortfall which will be made good in just a matter of days when you finally complete.



