Q I’m wondering if you could give me some help-to-buy advice. I have a help-to-buy Isa and so does my brother. We both want to get a mortgage together as we cannot afford to buy otherwise. I wanted to ask whether I would be able to use my help-to-buy Isa if I don’t live in the property with my brother? My brother would live in the property with his family. However, the mortgage would be in both our names. Any advice you can give would be very much appreciated. PJ

A It is a key requirement of the help-to-buy Isa that to qualify for the 25% bonus that the government adds to your Isa savings when you buy a property, you must live in it. You must also be a genuine first-time buyer, the property you buy must cost £250,000 or less (£450,000 or less in London), be purchased with a mortgage and be the only home you will own.

There’s nothing to stop you using the savings you have accumulated in your Isa to buy a property with your brother but as you won’t be living there, you won’t be able to claim the government bonus, which – if you have saved £12,000 or more including interest – would be another £3,000 to put towards the purchase price. If you and your brother were buying somewhere to live together, both of you would be able to claim the government bonus and so would be able to put both bonuses towards the property purchase.

Buying jointly with your brother but not moving in would also rule out the possibility of getting the bonus if you subsequently decided to buy somewhere to live for yourself using your help-to-buy Isa savings as a deposit. That’s because owning a share of your brother’s home would mean you were no longer a first-time buyer, which is defined as “someone who has never owned a home anywhere in the UK or the world”.

So while shared ownership with your brother doesn’t work in your favour, shared ownership with a housing association could be an option and could mean that you would be able to claim the government bonus. The price cap of £250,000 (or £450,000 in London) is the same as for non-shared ownership properties and applies to the full purchase price rather than to the cost of the share that you buy.