Child savings, locking it away

Welshy213

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help.
My child has been left £15k and is currently 3 months old.

We would like to put the money away for future life expenses, uni, car etc.

Happy with S&S Isas given the time frame, however what I am trying to find out is:-

Is it possible that at 18 the money is not just handed over to the child?

I hope we do our best and bring the child up well, but things can happen.
I would not, where possible, want to hand over what may be 30k by then if the child has gone "feral" yes it is their money but is there anyway to control it?

Would like to be able to amend it as time goes by as well, i.e open a S&S Isa with the max for this year and a standard Stock account with the remaining, and the bed and isa each year.

Thanks in Advance

Welsh

Zola.

You could say nothing about the money until they are wise enough to manage it well.

Teach them financial wisdom from an early age ?

xylophone

If the child has been left the money with no contingency ( "indefeasibly vested"- ie it is simply a case of the only reason that she cannot have it now being that she is too young to give good receipt) then the money belongs to her absolutely and you will hold it for her in "bare trust" until she is 18 (16 in Scotland).


http://www.prescient-financial.com/docs/Bare%20trust%20returns.pdf

She has the legal right to access and control at that age.

You might wish to consider transferring the maximum available into a JISA in this tax year, (using the stocks and shares option for which Charles Stanley or Hargreaves Lansdown might be worth a look) perhaps holding the balance in the best available child savings account, moving the money into the JISA in subsequent tax years.

https://www.charles-stanley-direct.co.uk/Our_Services/JISA/?gclid=COmDz6fpvNECFWsq0wodd-0LWw

http://www.hl.co.uk/partners/search/junior-isa?theSource=PCHLJ&Override=1&adg=G+HLBJ+JIS&gclid=CKLWur3pvNECFcMy0woduggC8Q



https://www.gov.uk/junior-individual-savings-accounts/overview

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-1583863/Best-savings-rates-Junior-Isas-children-s-accounts.html

Keep_pedalling

If an 18 year old is determined to get their hand on their inheritance then there is not much you can do about it,

I would go down the S&S ISA route, and providing you educate her on the value of investing it's unlikely she will blow the lot at 18. Let her know about her inheritance once she is old enough to understand a little about savings so it doesn't come as a complete surprise to her.

Flobberchops

Like others have said, locking it away is one thing but withholding it from her after the age of 18 is quite another. I don't feel you'd have any moral or even legal justification for doing so. What's worse than a reckless 18 year old spending her inheritance on frivolities? An 18 year old taking her own parents to court, that's what.

I do sympathise as I'm in a similar situation myself - baby daughter, a smaller lump sum but one which we're adding to and I'm projecting will be about £50k at age 18. My philosophy is that it's my responsibility to instill some money sense into her and if on her 18th birthday she blows the load on Haribo and boyband posters (or whatever teenagers are into these days) it'll be my failing, not hers. A few stern conversations along the lines of "when you're an adult you're paying rent, whether that's under my roof or somebody elses" may help accustom her to the realities of grim adult life. But, only time will tell on that score.

A possible trick though, could be to put some or all of the funds into bonds or other no-withdrawal, no-early-closure fixed income equivalents. For some reason I thought NS&I Chidren's Bonds didn't allow withdrawal or closure but that's not the case, but there may well be other suitable products out there.