Child savings/investment

Bells71

Hi all,
My daughter is 14 and has just been left £19500 from her late grandmothers death in service grant, there are no stipulations of trust with this. At the moment it is in a NatWest savings account getting a couple of pounds interest.
I do not wish her to have this until 18/21 as it would be a good kick start in life.
I just want it to earn the most interest over the next few years, but have never been in this situation before with so much money.
Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated!

MX5huggy

Does she have a Child Trust Fund? Where is it held what’s it worth? Is it cash or stocks and shares?

Once you know this you decide to stick with it or move it to a Junior ISA. As she can’t have both and adding this £19k to the existing CTF or a new JISA is likely to be the best thing to do. She can’t access the money until 18 with either.

eskbanker

Bells71 said:

My daughter is 14 and has just been left £19500 from her late grandmothers death in service grant, there are no stipulations of trust with this. At the moment it is in a NatWest savings account getting a couple of pounds interest.
I do not wish her to have this until 18/21 as it would be a good kick start in life.

If there are no stipulations of trust then she is legally entitled to access the money at 18 (16 in Scotland I believe) regardless of your wishes, so you're obliged to use accounts that would facilitate this.

ratechaser

Cash JISA would be my top pick given her age. Will be able to earn 2.5% through that although will need 3 tax years to fully invest it. Options here

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/junior-isa/

For the residue while waiting, there are a few instant access kids accounts that will pay over 1% on lump sums. Or if you want to spent a bit more time on it, you can open a number of different regular saver accounts that will pay more interest. It's just more work and more accounts to keep track of.

And as already mentioned, the money will be hers to access at 18...

xylophone

there are no stipulations of trust with this. At the moment it is in a NatWest savings account getting a couple of pounds interest.
I do not wish her to have this until 18/21 as it would be a good kick start in life.

If this money belongs to your daughter  (as a nominee of her late grandmother's DISG), then it is quite possible that she has the right to access now (or if not, certainly no later than age 18).

Presumably at her age she has a CTF?

If so, it would be possible to fully subscribe the CTF in the CTF year and then transfer the CTF to a JISA - this could use £18,000 of the money.

The Coventry JISA (2.25%) would accept a transfer in from a CTF.  The JISA can be transferred to the highest payer later if required.

The balance could be held in (eg) a child account like this 

https://www.bathbuildingsociety.co.uk/personal-savings/accounts/instant-access-accounts/junior-saver/

and then transferred to the JISA in the next tax year.