I need to talk about money. Specifically my finances and trying to buy a house as a young person. I hope you’ll forgive me if I sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about, but that’s because I’m going to try to make sense of the government’s reforms to personal savings accounts, known as Isas.

These products have become significantly overcomplicated in recent years, with the government continually refreshing what were conceived of as simple tax-free savings accounts with new rules, allowances, products and age restrictions. I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. As the deputy money editor of the i newspaper, Callum Mason, put it: “It’s hard enough to understand if you cover money for a living – I don’t know how the general public is supposed to do so.”

So, for dummies (me), an Isa is a savings and investment account that allows you to save up to £20,000 each financial year without paying income or capital gains tax on the interest added. One of them is called the lifetime Isa (Lisa): it’s designed for first-time house buyers or retirement savers and is only available to those under the age of 40. This will now be replaced by a first-time buyer (FTB) Isa by around April 2028.

The new Isa, which is only for buying a house rather than retirement, looks set to have no upper age limit. If you have an existing Lisa you can continue to use that for its original purpose, but you can’t transfer the funds from there into the new FTB Isa. But, err, you can transfer from........

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