Court Funds Office: 13yo's Funds

planteria

has anyone any experience/understanding of dealing with the Court Funds Office?..
we currently have some funds held on behalf of a 13 year old girl which is split via Cash on Special Account and an Equity Index Tracker Fund.
there is very little info available, other than notice of an annual review in August of this year, with reference to being able to transfer the Units at "majority".. perhaps they mean maturity:think:
it is a substantial sum, with 68% of the total in Cash.
the funds would be better invested elsewhere, but does anyone know if it is possible to transfer them?

bowlhead99

I don't know the answer to your question as have never dealt with the court funds office.

However, the reference to majority is not going to be a typo for maturity. The FTSE index is an index that is going to run and run. It is not going to cease to exist one day and "mature", and neither are open ended investment funds that track it.

In the context of something held for a minor, their reaching "the age of majority" means the person in question turns 18 and has legal capacity as an adult.

planteria

yes, that makes complete sense, thank you bowlhead.

would you agree that 68% of the funds in Cash on Special Account is not the best place for it:question:.. unless there is something Very special for the Court Funds Office:lovethoug

xylophone

What is the interest rate on the "Special Account"?

It would seem that the child is the beneficial owner of the funds and the Court is acting as bare trustee for her.

I should think that the idea is to try to both preserve capital and achieve some growth by adopting a conservative policy.

I have no idea whether the control of the funds could be passed to other Trustees - if the Court were to be asked to consider it, presumably they would insist on the Trustees' demonstrating knowledge and expertise or taking professional advice.

This would cost money which the Trust would have to find - the possibility of achieving better performance even after costs is there but so is the possibility of doing worse......

AnotherJoe

If it was your money, yes you'd not hold so much in cash, however if you did the "sensible" thing and put it mainly or all in the stock market and it went down you could probably be sued for not taking sufficient care of it, so it's a no win situation.

Malthusian

Tricky one as five years is the conventional definition of the timeframe over which it is prudent to invest in the stockmarket, but it does sometimes take longer than five years to see a profit - like those investors who were unlucky enough to invest in mid-2007. (I'm assuming that "majority" is age 18.)

If it was my own daughter I would likely increase the amount invested for the long term, if it was not I would leave it as it is. Presumably whoever made the original decision to invest 32% in the stockmarket and 68% in cash had their reasons for doing so.

planteria

thank you all,
these funds are held for my daughter - there shall be no suing;)
and yes.. i assume they did Malthusian. but it seems overly cautious to me:think:.
getting through to the CFO isn't easy, but i have learnt that the Cash is earning 0.5%. i was told that i needed to look online to find out what index/indices the EITF tracks, but i can't find it online. the website on the letter is just for contacting the CFO.
We can request that the funds are released and transferred into another investment, but this has to be approved by the court that originally handled the case - they "like" the transfer to be to an account that is similar in the sense of having no access until the child is 18: which is fine with us.
:question: any thoughts/ideas appreciated.

00kitkat00

planteria wrote: »

thank you all,
these funds are held for my daughter - there shall be no suing;)
and yes.. i assume they did Malthusian. but it seems overly cautious to me:think:.
getting through to the CFO isn't easy, but i have learnt that the Cash is earning 0.5%. i was told that i needed to look online to find out what index/indices the EITF tracks, but i can't find it online. the website on the letter is just for contacting the CFO.
We can request that the funds are released and transferred into another investment, but this has to be approved by the court that originally handled the case - they "like" the transfer to be to an account that is similar in the sense of having no access until the child is 18: which is fine with us.
:question: any thoughts/ideas appreciated.

Planteria how did you get on? When I had initial hearing judge actually asked if I had an account in mind I would like funds to go into as court fund interest rate was not competitive, solicitor had previously advised me that the courts had to look after the funds so I wasn't prepared in court. I have written to them asking if they will consider a junior ISA