Low Cost Junior Stocks and Shares ISA

briz_hatchings

A little overwhelmed by the lack of impartial information out there on this. Done a quick search of the forums but can't seem to find anything that specifically discusses this topic.

Looking for something that is primarily low cost which allows me to invest a portion of my little one's money in a simple UK tracker fund.

Looked at a few options so far, but would appreciate some input from anyone who has looked at this and understands the associated costs.

Alliance Trust Savings - Don't fancy this one to be fair. Looks like they want to charge £40 + VAT annually just for being the wrapper for any funds / stocks I want to invest in. This will be on top of any charges for the funds actually invested in.

Legal and General - Had some good low cost unit trusts with these guys years back. Looks a little better for my requirements. There is an option to invest in their UK tracker with a 0.56% annual management fee. By the looks of it though there are still the fund charges of 0.40% which would take it up to about 1%.

Halifax Junior Stocks and Shares ISA - Seems to just be a front for the Scottish Widows Junior ISA which invests in their UK tracker (interestingly it doesn't look to me like you can go direct Scottish Widows). Charges appear to be about 1% again.

Has anyone got any experience of this and know of a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA that allows investment in a simple UK tracker fund with annual charges of less than 1%?

Many thanks.

marathonic

I know VERY little about Junior ISA's as they're not relevant to me - YET!

However, I did a little research and see that, unlike standard ISA's, a Junior ISA can be switched between cash and stocks as many times as you like.

For this reason, you might want to consider investing it in cash for a couple of years until the fund becomes big enough that the £40 + VAT annual charge becomes small as a percentage of the overall portfolio value.

briz_hatchings

A very valid point. I'd also be very pleased if the fund did get that big.

jimjames

One like this is probably about the best value for small funds as long as you are careful about using trackers to only use the ones that do not attract additional fees.

http://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/junior-isa

There may be cheaper platforms but I think HL would come out top vs the 3 already mentioned, certainly for ease of use.

If you got the HL ISA you can use the BlackRock UK tracker that has charges of around 0.5% with no additional fees.