{"id":32555,"date":"2025-07-08T17:23:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T17:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/lifetime-isas-why-they-divide-opinion\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T17:23:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T17:23:39","slug":"lifetime-isas-why-they-divide-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/lifetime-isas-why-they-divide-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Lifetime ISAs: Why they divide opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Kevin Peachey<\/span><\/p>\n

Cost of living correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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Liam Roberts had only just finished university, but he was already thinking ahead to how to buy a home and fund retirement.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he was looking for a way to build up some savings, and so he chose a Lifetime ISA (LISA).<\/p>\n

Anyone under 40 can open a LISA to either help save towards retirement or buy a first home. Savers can put in up to \u00a34,000 a year and the government will top it up by 25%.<\/p>\n

“It is an excellent product,” says Liam, now aged 28. “The government paid \u00a34,000 towards my first home.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"LiamLiam Roberts<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Liam is delighted with his Lifetime ISA<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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He bought a two-bedroom home in Manchester in 2022, using the cash savings and government bonus to help pay the mortgage deposit.<\/p>\n

That LISA was automatically closed, and so, after getting his job as an asset manager, he opened another one.<\/p>\n

This time it was a stocks and shares LISA, for even longer-term retirement plans. Again, he puts in the maximum \u00a34,000 a year, and gets the 25% government bonus. He can start making withdrawals, without a penalty, from the age of 60.<\/p>\n

“They are designed for long-term planning,” he says. <\/p>\n

In a job that involves reading financial products, he knew what he was signing up for, and that it would work well for his circumstances.<\/p>\n

Not everyone has the same knowledge, though, or the same opportunity to make the most of the benefits of the LISA. There remains a limited number of providers, with High Street banks and building societies not among them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The influential Treasury Committee of MPs has said the LISA is ripe for reform<\/a>, as the commitment of taxpayer funds is involved.<\/p>\n

Many of you have got in touch via Your Voice, Your BBC<\/a> to express your dismay about the product’s pitfalls.<\/p>\n

At the heart of these concerns are two issues:<\/p>\n