New to the board - question re childrens savings accounts

peachyprice

Sorry, I have to disagree with NDL, the accounts are not yours so you do not have to declare them.

If the children are old enough to have your name removed from the accounts they are perfectly entitled to do so.

michbright

peachyprice wrote: »

Sorry, I have to disagree with NDL, the accounts are not yours so you do not have to declare them.

If the children are old enough to have your name removed from the accounts they are perfectly entitled to do so.

As trustee of the accounts, you would be the legal owner of the accounts and the children are beneficiaries of the 'trust'. This may be what NDL meant about the accounts.

My knowledge of trusts is rather sketchy to say the least (despite only having studied it last year!), but it is my understanding that while beneficiaries cannot demand a trustee do anything specific, they do have have a legal interest in the property held on trust and their interest is greater than that of the trustee.

Hope this makes sense, but what I'm basically trying to say is that while 'technically' the money belongs to the adult, the child has a better right to the money as a named beneficiary and therefore the OR should not be able to touch it.

peachyprice

Is being a signatory for a child too young to sign the same as being a trustee though?

michbright

peachyprice wrote: »

Is being a signatory for a child too young to sign the same as being a trustee though?

It is my understanding that it is. The account is opened in the adult's name, with the child as the beneficiary until such time as the child is old enough to have the account in his/her name. This is a bare trust where the trustee doesn't have to do anything positive with the assets (money in this case) just hold them on behalf of the child.

Trusts are a minefield and I still don't fully understand them. Thankfully I don't do this for a living - just needed to pass this subject to continue with my degree!

imcognito

Hi
I wondered this too, I rang my OR (whom I have still not have interview with yet!) and asked him. I said that my mum paid money into their account each month and that although my name is on account (as they are under 18) so is their name and he confirmed he wouldnt be interested in it.. Though saying that there was only about £100 in each account as we took money out to buy them things over the last year.

Barclays when they closed my account made no reference to the kids accounts either just said they were taking the penny (LOL) from my savings account to offset my overdraft

Hopefully your kids accounts will be safe.

strimmerman

I rang the insolvency service who said that you must declare the accounts....the OR will then write to the institution concerned and they will respond saying the account is held in trust fro the child. I gather they will check the accounts as there is potential for people to have salted money away in them to avoid it being touched by the OR. If you ring the IS they are very nice and helpful and hopefully that will put your mind at ease, I know it has mine.

mousehunt

miracleneeded wrote: »

Hi All,

I've been reading all the posts on this board for the last week or so, as sadly our business has gone belly-up and apart from having to cease trading (is a limited company), hubby and me have no jobs and unless a miracle happens very very soon, we are likely to be going BR and losing our home.

I'm sure I'll have lots of questions as time goes on, but here's my first one:

Our two children each have a savings account with about two thousand quid in. Will these be taken as assets?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hello read your post and know exactly how you feel in relation to loosing the company - was in this position in Feb 2007. Ended up going BR myself in July 2008 after I tried to deal with everything. When my BR went through the OR was not interested in my daughters accounts. Since then (she was 11 in August) we closed the account in which I was named on and opened an account at the Nat West which is solely in her name.

Hope this helps. Good luck with everything

Sue x

miracleneeded

Haven't been on for a few days but came back today to see what else is new - thanks to everyone for your posts, you've put my mind at rest. We haven't deposited anything in the children's accounts for a long time, we've been running on empty for quite some time so had none to deposit!

Seeing CAB next week - hope they don't throw us out, it's such a messy situation!

Thanks again