CTF discussion area

cloud_dog

dibbs26 wrote:

Hi,
I spent many months looking into this and I agree with you. In the end I went for the Family Investments Stakeholder CTF. New Star manage this, they are the old 'Jupiter' investment company. V. Good fund managers in my opinion.
Hope this helps
Peter

Me tooooo. I hear Walkers has quite a good rep, but as ever don't trust me. Make your decision and live with the consequences.

I think people are beating themselves up over what decision to make. In some ways it doesn't matter what decision you make, as long as you make a decision. Look at it this way none of the accounts, and I include the share based onces, are going to turn the money into zero. They will all turn it into something more than zero, so in reality your child(ren) will only be better off, to a lesser or larger degree.

cloud_dog

(and yes, I appreciate that this is a very simplistic post)

darbooka

Bear in mind that with Ipswich and most other bulding society CTF's, there is the now-common clause forcing you to waive any windfalls for five years, in the event that the building society is sold to a commercial bank. However, if they may decide to allow the windfall, and in any event if the building society is sold after the five years or whatever time frame is indicated in the form you sign then the account holder WOULD be entitled to enjoy a windfall along with the building society's other longtime members. So in time CTF account holders at building societies become windfall beneficiaries, but not carpetbaggers.

across

just had aletter this morning from yorkshire building society because our daughter has her trust fund there (cash savings ctf) and they are putting the interest rate up for everyone from 4.80% to 5.30% not bad eh i am really glad now i put it there because originally you could only increase the interest by bonus if you put £200 or more in during the year and as i have not afforded this amount we would not have qualified my mortgage is there that is why i chose it as it is convenient. :j

darbooka

How long should it normally take to get the vouchers paid into a new CTF account?

isasmurf

The voucher cannot be presented to HMRC until the end of your cooling off period. This can be up to 31 days depending on the provider.

darbooka

In one case that I know of first hand, Government CTF offices said funds were transferred on a particular date and the building society said funds reached the account on another date 10 days later. So are banks and building socieites enjoying at least 10 days free interest (even more than the 3 days or so which take personal chequest to clear banks)?

Nick_C_4

The voucher cannot be presented to HMRC until the end of your cooling off period. This can be up to 31 days depending on the provider.

It's more complicated than that. Vouchers are 'presented' to HMRC by sending a 'return' through the Government Gateway. This is only done twice a month. Then HMRC verify the voucher, and send a 'schedule' back through the gateway. Most providers will then reconcile that with the receipt of the funds from HMRC before applying the money to the CTF. So, even after 31 days, it could be 15 days before the return is sent, and several more days before the money is received by the provider. You could be looking at almost 8 weeks as the maximum. The client I work for does apply the money as soon as they receive it, but it can just take a long time. A stakeholder CTF has a cooling off period of only 14 days, I think, so the quickest it can happen is about 3 weeks.

darbooka

But if HMRC says that their records show that they paid the voucher amount on a particular day, then what excuse would a bank or building society have for stating that the amount was paid into the account on a date 10 days later (or ostensibily for holding on to the funds and keeping them elsewhere)?!

Nick_C_4

If you assume the transfer from HMRC takes four working days, and assume that the provider reconciles the money within one working day, then it could take 10 elapsed days if it was across bank holidays, I guess. Or if they didn't reconcile the money that quickly, then it would always take that long. Remember there are only five working days between a Friday and the Monday 10 days later.

ReportInvestor

Sunday Times Money editor

Brown's SIPPs U-Turn shows you shouldn't add money to CTFs because the money is tied up for years and you can't trust government

The Tories are already talking of stopping the CTF, so it might be allowed to wither on the vine in due course.

I agree that you probably shouldn't invest extra funds in stakeholder or share CTFs, especially since you can usually get more choice and better value by investing additional monies outside the CTF structure.

If I had a child under 3, I'd invest the CTF in cash and then choose the best investment possible for additional amounts.

A sensible, interfering, nanny government would not let young people get their hands on the cash until they were 22 and were aware of the scale of their student debts. But that would have been bad publicity for this government since it would have drawn attention to its large scale meanness, rather than to its small scale generosity.