Equity Child Trust Fund - fees and moving

locky123

We have L&G Tracker Equity CTF for our child since 2006 and its value is about 5K.

The charges are 1.5% but dont really know what this equates to in actual charges and whether it is typical.

Is it possible to transfer to another fund and if so will there be any additional charges?

We will keep adding £50pm for another 8 years.

I would hope that there is maybe a better performing fund with lower charges.

Imnoexpert_2

I'm surprised you haven't had any replies because there are lots of us in this position and it is an almighty mess.

I have the same L&G fund (bought through Nationwide -That caring, sharing, mutual which I am a shareholder of who either sold on this investment or were just a front for L&G - I can't remember which).

I too pay 1.5% annual fee for a basic tracker which I could buy elsewhere and pay less around .25% annual fee and 0.27 total expense ratio for. I don't know how they justify this. I guess they will say the costs of admin. for a ctf are higher - but is it that much?

You can transfer these funds but there is very little choice and I too would be interested to find out if any alternatives have a lower cost. I have several times looked at moving to an Investment trust with F&C but recently they have upped their charges.

The hope was that we could move these funds into a Junior ISA which would be better and I was holding fire for that but the Autumn Statement by the chancellor doesn't seem to have made the predicted change. I see there is a post on this forum suggesting tweeting the chancellor. I'm not a twit - (or is it tweeter) so I plan to write to my MP so he can have the privilege of ignoring me rather than the chancellor who is even more used to ignoring people!

I know the money was free money (or I suppose as a taxpayer my own money) but I have topped up with my own cash, and it would be good to do the cost/benefit to see if that was worthwhile.

Sorry this is a rant rather than the constructive reply you deserved!

locky123

Decided to move CTF to F&C where charges are 0.85% for funds I selected, with £25+VAT annual charge which decided to pay separately, so not affect funds value. The funds I chose out perform the L&G Tracker, historically and currently. Will still be paying monthly sum into each fund, min is £25 per fund.

swanny65

locky123 wrote: »

Decided to move CTF to F&C where charges are 0.85% for funds I selected, with £25+VAT annual charge which decided to pay separately, so not affect funds value. The funds I chose out perform the L&G Tracker, historically and currently. Will still be paying monthly sum into each fund, min is £25 per fund.

Good decision.

We have been with F&C since inception, initially because it offered their Investment Trust fund. We can only afford the minimum £25.00 a month for each of our children. However we have more or less doubled our money, with both CTF worth over £5000. We have spread the investments over 6 funds.

Not happy with the recent increase in charges but it appears the best of the bunch

jimjames

swanny65 wrote: »

Good decision.

We have been with F&C since inception, initially because it offered their Investment Trust fund. We can only afford the minimum £25.00 a month for each of our children. However we have more or less doubled our money, with both CTF worth over £5000. We have spread the investments over 6 funds.

Not happy with the recent increase in charges but it appears the best of the bunch

One option is to merge the accounts to a single one with both childrens names on - that will halve the fees you pay but you still have the same annual fund charges - just removes the double £30 pa fee.