Junior SIPPs for when junior doesn't make it to 18?

B0bbyEwing

MX5huggy said:

Could you send the minor on active military service? Then they are allowed a will. 

Not sure they'd do much serving from their cot lol

anonmoose

I just had a look on my kids SIPPs that I set up and I can't see an option to add a beneficiary as you normally do with an adult SIPP. Therefore I would assume it would go to next of kin in the same way it would with an adult who has not set up a will or stated a beneficiary.

It certainly wouldn't go back to who paid in the money, as that would be odd.  Once the money is paid in to a child's account of any sort it is legally then the child's money therefore would just be part of the estate if they died.  Obviously this is only my opinion but I can't see any other realistic option.

In terms of dividing up the estate if it's complicated (eg. when parents are not together or no longer involved etc) I have no idea.  You would want to get legal advice if that is the situation as it probably depends on the individual circumstances.

Malthusian

B0bbyEwing said:

Are you saying to me dunstonh, that if the worst happened then what anyone wanted is irrelevant - it would go to the parents (what if they're separated by then? Who'd get control?) & it would be for the parents at that moment in time to give the money back to Person B?

Short answer is yes. If it was important to B that they got the money back in the event of the child's death, then I would question whether they should be paying it in in the first place.
Death benefits would be at the trustees' discretion. There is nothing stopping the child writing an expression of wish to the trustees saying "if i die plees pay the money to peяson B" once they can do their letters. Even though they are a minor it has as much legal force as an expression of wish written by an adult, i.e. none. I would not count on the trustees following it.
There is equally nothing stopping from A forwarding the death benefits to B (as a gift in their own name).
If person D (other parent) is estranged from the child, A (parent) should tell the pension trustees so on the child's death, and it is entirely possible that they may use their discretion to pay the whole amount to parent A.

B0bbyEwing

Ok I think it's pretty clear now.

Money goes to child - childs money.
Child dies - parents money.
The end.

For the record as there's been some clear confusion - it's not a case of person giving the money wanting it back, it's the mother of the child, who's the daughter of the person giving the money, saying you should have it back. 
All well & good.

I personally see potential issues with the dad though.

I personally think I'm a very fair kind of person. Should I split from my wife then everything gets split equally. Say the house gets sold rather than one buying the other out, 50-50 split, no problem. I earn slightly more than her but nothing to get excited over, 50-50 split is fair.

I can see the dad in this scenario being a I will get as much as I can guy, but that's going in to issues for the relationship board which I'm not even going to post there anyway.

I know legally speaking the money will end up being 50/50 between the parents, but legal isn't always right.
I had some scum of a relative challenge a will & get a payout. Much less than they wanted, about 13-14x less, but they got more than they should've. Challenging wasn't illegal but it also wasn't right.

Malthusian

I personally think I'm a very fair kind of person. Should I split from my wife then everything gets split equally.

I'm sure you are a very fair person, but the test of fairness is whether you do things that are fair when you aren't legally obliged to :-)

Although the starting point for a divorce settlement is a 50/50 split if the marriage is not a short one, that is before the courts take the needs of the partners and their children into account. (And it doesn't matter whose name the earnings of the marriage were in.) If Dad is not going to be sharing post-split childrearing responsibility then it is likely he would get less than 50%. If he is then it would normally be reasonable for death benefits from a child's pension to be split along the same lines. 

(ETA: Worth noting at this point that intestacy splits a child's own assets, as opposed to their pension fund, equally between the parents and does not care if one of them was estranged. The other parent could in theory challenge the fairness of intestacy under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act, but we're now in cloud-cuckoo land.)

B0bbyEwing

Malthusian said:

I'm sure you are a very fair person, but the test of fairness is whether you do things that are fair when you aren't legally obliged to :-)

Then I pass already. We'll just have to leave it at that because going in to detail will open up a whole can of worms that will upset the holier-than-thous

Malthusian said:

Although the starting point for a divorce settlement is a 50/50 split if the marriage is not a short one, that is before the courts take the needs of the partners and their children into account. (And it doesn't matter whose name the earnings of the marriage were in.) If Dad is not going to be sharing post-split childrearing responsibility then it is likely he would get less than 50%. If he is then it would normally be reasonable for death benefits from a child's pension to be split along the same lines. 

I know that he earns a wedge vs her. He's somewhere around the £3k per month & that was about 2 years ago.
She's £1.4k per month. She plans on returning full time after baby. I'll believe it when I see it.

While she may be related to me, that doesn't mean I'm a blind fool. I think the pair of them are immature & see themselves as me & you rather than us. The relationship is not a team & for that I would be absolutely amazed if it didn't fail and so long as it was for the right reasons (and not just staying together just because) then I would be more than happy to be wrong about that.

But we shall see. 

All in the land of what ifs. Still, I don't think it's a good idea to NOT pay in to an investment type account for the child just because it MAY be one of those unfortunate children who don't make 18. 

Anyway, thanks to all for the info.