Child Trust Fund & JISA

rdc_wwfc

When my daughter was born in 2010 we setup a Child Trust fund with Yorkshire Building Society for my daughter claiming the government voucher (I think £50).

When she got a little older, we setup a Junior Cash account for her, and started paying money in regularly, completely forgetting that we had the old trust fund.

When my wife's Grandmother passed away we found out that she'd been making deposits to the Trust Fund, and there's now a few hundred pounds there.

I know my daughter can't have 2 JISA's, does anyone know if it's possible to transfer the CTF money (YBS) to the JISA (Halifax)?

Thanks
Rob 

wiseonesomeofthetime

From Halifax website 

• They can't have both a Child Trust Fund and a Junior Cash ISA. If they have a Child Trust Fund and want this account, they would need to transfer the Child Trust Fund to a Junior Cash ISA in a branch.

So it looks like you need to visit Halifax branch and discuss/arrange with them. 

rdc_wwfc

Halifax just quoted me the same sentence, no use at all.
I was hoping that someone else in the same boat had previously had some success.

cloud_dog

rdc_wwfc said:

When my daughter was born in 2010 we setup a Child Trust fund with Yorkshire Building Society for my daughter claiming the government voucher (I think £50).

When she got a little older, we setup a Junior Cash account for her, and started paying money in regularly, completely forgetting that we had the old trust fund.

When my wife's Grandmother passed away we found out that she'd been making deposits to the Trust Fund, and there's now a few hundred pounds there.

I know my daughter can't have 2 JISA's, does anyone know if it's possible to transfer the CTF money (YBS) to the JISA (Halifax)?

Thanks
Rob 

Just for clarity, a child can have two JISAs, a cash savings one and a S&S one.

xylophone

I was hoping that someone else in the same boat had previously had some success.

Do you mean if any other poster has transferred a CTF held with another provider to the Halifax Junior ISA?

Apart from that, it would seem that the Coventry BS offer a higher JISA rate than Halifax.

Transfer in from CTF  is accepted.

https://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/member/product/savings/children/junior-cash-isa-2.html

xylophone

Another thought  - if your child is unlikely to require access to her money before age 18, might it be worth considering transferring money from the Halifax savings account to the JISA(which offers a higher interest rate)?

With inflation running at 9.1%/11.7% you might as well get what you can.

refluxer

@xylophone If, by "Junior cash account" the OP meant Junior Cash ISA then he appears to have (mistakenly) ended up with both a Child Trust Fund and a Junior ISA for the same child open at the same time (presuming they're both cash accounts)

refluxer

@rdc_wwfc I would have like to have thought that the Halifax would be able to advise. If they can't or won't help, then you might just have to bite the bullet and contact the HMRC, explain the situation and ask how they want you to proceed.

During the Junior ISA application process you would have signed a declaration saying that you didn't have another CTF or JISA open so you'll just have to explain that you had genuinely forgotten about the CTF.

When mistakes like this are made with adult ISA accounts, I would imagine that the offending accounts would get voided and the money returned but, as the money in a CTF or JISA belongs to the child and they can't access it until they're 18, then this obviously makes this situation a bit more tricky.

If there aren't huge amounts of money at stake, then hopefully they can just write this off as an admin error and allow you to transfer the CTF into the existing Junior ISA but that would be dependant on the Halifax being able to accept the transfer, as this would normally be done at the time of the JISA application.

xylophone

If, by "Junior cash account" the OP meant Junior Cash ISA

This didn't occur to me!  Thanks.

xylophone

If the OP's child does have a JISA with Halifax, I wonder would he consider transferring it to a stocks and shares Junior ISA with Fidelity say?

Then he could transfer the CTF to (say) the Coventry JISA?

A child is permitted a stocks and shares JISA and a cash JISA.

With inflation the way it is, it could be well worth considering the stocks and shares option?

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

If the child does indeed have a CTF and a JISA with Halifax, this is as much the Halifax's error as the OP's and the Halifax should help regularise the situation?

refluxer

xylophone said:

If the child does indeed have a CTF and a JISA with Halifax, this is as much the Halifax's error as the OP's and the Halifax should help regularise the situation?

The CTF is with the YBS and the JISA is with the Halifax so I can see why the Halifax may not wish to get involved (because they've done nothing wrong and it's not their problem) but it's a bit mean of them not to at least try to help a customer out.

I've not got experience of this myself, but I figured contacting the HMRC directly would be the quickest way to resolve the problem and would cut out the middle-man, as that's probably all the Halifax would do anyway.