CTF discussion area

Escape1sm

Hi

My 2 youngest are 2yrs and 4.5 months. My 2yr old has CF (Cystic Fibrosis) and was very poorly for the first year of her life, we virtually spent most of it in the hospital.

We never received a Voucher for her and to be honest couldn't of cared less at the time as it was touch and go wether she would survive. We got the letter from the Government chosen investment company called thesharecentre. I didnt think anything of it and we thought we'd go with it as we just didnt have the time or energy to look into it. I also wrongly assumed it would be some kind of savings account.

I received her first statement today and I'm so angry with it - they received the £250 on 04 Oct - bought £250 worth of shares with Legal & General, have charged her admin fees every 3 months of £0.56, £0.63 and £0.65. and her remaining balance todate as at 04 July is £208.77.

I am staggered by how much this so called investment has lost her in 6/7 months, almost 20% and I'm very angry that the government has basically given this company legal right to what is tantamount to flushing this money down the drain. I would have chosen a savings account not a roulette wheel 'investment'

I still havent received the voucher for my 4 mnth old and have contacted the CTF who are sending another out.

Can anyone recomend a good savings account and also how to get this transfered as soon as possible.

Thanks

jessicamb

Escape1sm wrote: »

Hi

My 2 youngest are 2yrs and 4.5 months. My 2yr old has CF (Cystic Fibrosis) and was very poorly for the first year of her life, we virtually spent most of it in the hospital.

We never received a Voucher for her and to be honest couldn't of cared less at the time as it was touch and go wether she would survive. We got the letter from the Government chosen investment company called thesharecentre. I didnt think anything of it and we thought we'd go with it as we just didnt have the time or energy to look into it. I also wrongly assumed it would be some kind of savings account.

I received her first statement today and I'm so angry with it - they received the £250 on 04 Oct - bought £250 worth of shares with Legal & General, have charged her admin fees every 3 months of £0.56, £0.63 and £0.65. and her remaining balance todate as at 04 July is £208.77.

I am staggered by how much this so called investment has lost her in 6/7 months, almost 20% and I'm very angry that the government has basically given this company legal right to what is tantamount to flushing this money down the drain. I would have chosen a savings account not a roulette wheel 'investment'

I still havent received the voucher for my 4 mnth old and have contacted the CTF who are sending another out.

Can anyone recomend a good savings account and also how to get this transfered as soon as possible.

Thanks

Hi

you can transfer your provider at any time - select a new one and ask them for a transfer in form. It should be as simple as that.

The initial £250 voucher would have been invested in a stakeholder account selected at random from a list by the government (as you did not open an account). Unfortuntately the stockmarket has suffered somewhat in recent months - which is why the value of your investment has gone down (and thats the difference - it is an investment account rather than a cash savings account).

For info the maximum AMCs on stakeholder CTFs are 1.5%

My (and it is just that!) would be that if you want a cash savings account you could probably do better than a cash CTF. Also by transferring the account at this point you are locking in a loss on the original investment - whereas over 18 years the initial voucher has the potential (but not guarantee) to recover and outperform a cash account.

baby_boomer

We should have known that the timing had to be wrong when the government was recommending stock market investment :rolleyes:

As the financially illiterate are proportionately more likely to have left the business in the hands of the government, this could be [yet] another blow by New Labour against the low paid

As well as currently offering 6-7% tax free and risk free, a cash CTF is the best/only way for parents to give any significant cash sums to their children without the children being liable for tax on cash gifts of as little as £1500 in the case of a single parent.

As I've said before:

Open a cash CTF and if you want to go in for stock market investment for your children as well you can do this via other means and usually with lower charges than on a bogstandard 1.5% stakeholder which is probably a closet tracker fund anyway.

abu892

cloud_dog wrote: »

Abu, was scanning the thread and noticed no one has responded, so here goes............

The thing to remember is that a CTF account is pretty much the same as an ISA - its a wrapper. What can be done within the account is dependent on the rules for CTF and what the CTF provider provides.

What you are looking for is a provider who provides normal S&S dealing facilities within a CTF wrapper.

One provider (which I use) is SelfTrade. I transferred my daughters CTF from Family to SelfTrade a couple of years(ish) ago, and it basically allows me to deal as I like. Wrt the type of investments you can make I think it is identical (??) to an ISA account - so if you can hold it in an ISA you can hold it in a self select CTF. SelfTrade charges £12.50 per trade but there aren't any additional annual management charges. There may be cheaper self select providers out there so you'll need to hunt around.

cloud_dog

Many thanks for your response, very helpful. I have done some research myself, which I shall share in case anyone else is looking for a similar solution. I found 6 self-select shares CTF providers:
- The Reyker CTF
- Pilling & Co
- Redmayne
- Selftrade
- The Share Centre
- Walker Crips
Of these, those that looked the best value were Redmayne, Selftrade and The Share Centre, and a choice between these 3 will depend on how often you intend to trade and how large you expect the account to get as they use different combinations of percentage commissions and flat fees on account administration charges and dealing costs. I will be going for Selftrade as although the dealing charges are potentially higher at a flat rate of £12.50, there are apparently no account admin charges and I only intend to make one trade per year. Hope this helps someone else!

moneysaver_77

Hi all,

I have just opened a Tesco CTF. It a stakeholder account. Just wondering if it any good. I'm looking to add in about £25 every month.

I'm taking the view that long term the market will turn around. Fingers crossed!!

Has anyone had any dealings/experiences of using them?

Thanks in advance

mrsshopaholic

#427
Not sure.
I opened a ctf with the Halifax, it was also a stakeholder account(supposed to be the safest!!).
It was opened in 2006 and in 2007 had made £80!!
Just got my statement for 2008 and it has lost £90!!! So my child is now losing money!! Can this be right?
I wish I had opted for the saving account instead of shares at least some money would have been made!!
Anyone got any ideas or have had the same problem with their CTF's.

cloud_dog

mrsshopaholic wrote: »

#427
Not sure.
I opened a ctf with the Halifax, it was also a stakeholder account(supposed to be the safest!!).
It was opened in 2006 and in 2007 had made £80!!
Just got my statement for 2008 and it has lost £90!!! So my child is now losing money!! Can this be right?
I wish I had opted for the saving account instead of shares at least some money would have been made!!
Anyone got any ideas or have had the same problem with their CTF's.

Possibly a mis-conception. A 'Stakeholder' means it qualifies as a stakeholder product, i.e. it meets certain criteria - usually management fee's etc; it does not imply safety.

A Stakeholder CTF will be an equity / fund based investment where, as they say, the amount invested may go up or may go down. If you are not comfortable with the risk associated with an equity based investment then move it to a CTF savings account.

My daughters money is in an equity CTF and I'm sure that over the next 15 years there will be plenty of ups and downs but, at the end of it she will have a pot of money that has grown and significantly beat inflation, unlike potential savings account returns.

cloud_dog

JimmyTheWig

What are people's thoughts on a time-frame to invest a lump sum?

We have £600 that we want to put into our 2 year old daughter's stakeholder CTF.
I don't want to put it all in at once, as the day we do it might be a good day for the markets and so our money wouldn't get as much as it could have got. I'd rather spread it out a bit and minimise that risk.
So what do people think is a safe time-scale to invest this money? 6 monthly payments of £100 each? 12 monthly payments of £50 each? Weekly payments?

Thanks,
Jim

RajaStyle

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

What are people's thoughts on a time-frame to invest a lump sum?

We have £600 that we want to put into our 2 year old daughter's stakeholder CTF.
I don't want to put it all in at once, as the day we do it might be a good day for the markets and so our money wouldn't get as much as it could have got. I'd rather spread it out a bit and minimise that risk.
So what do people think is a safe time-scale to invest this money? 6 monthly payments of £100 each? 12 monthly payments of £50 each? Weekly payments?

Thanks,
Jim

I would do £25 a month but £50 a month sounds like the best option in your choices. You need to average out in this climate and ride through the drops.

techmob

hi guys!

i have been a little niave with the child trust funds, so not sure i understand it but i will question a few things here as i know you good people will know

just received a letter from engage regarding my sons child trust funds with a statement from the period 11 july 07 - 10 july 08

i will type out below basically what the letter says.

what i would like to know am i getting the best shares for my son, am i losing more than i should,are there better places to look after my sons money? i really do not know how it works and the 1.5% charge is that normal for this sort of thing?

last years value on 10 july 200 7 = £722.98
amount of government contributions = £0
payments from 11th july 07 to 10th july 08 = £60
total payments received during statement perioud = £60

number of shares = 983.3164
fund name = engage investment growth fund 1.5%
share price = £0.6672
value of shares held = £656.07
total value of CTF on 10 july 08 = £656.07

annual charge
current charge 1.5% is deducted from the fund before the share price is calculated and is not taken from the indvidual child trust fund account, the value shown above already shows the effect of this charge

share price on day of shares bought = 0.7493
share price on july 1st 08 = 0.6730