Savings in trust

Dot18

Hi,
I have three children who I have saved money for in a children's savings account over the years and they each hold about £8000 - I'm about to inherit some money from my mum and would like to add to this for when they are older and eg trying to find a deposit for a house. They are 17,15 and 13 and savings are currently in a children's savings account with me as a trustee. Are there any accounts with a decent interest rate that could be held in trust? One is autistic and past experience has shown they could be vulnerable to the influence of others so I want to add some protection but feel I should treat all three in the same way.

cwep2

I have looked at this and there are very few options available that won't give the children full control of the money at 18. In some ways this is perfectly correct, but if you want to stop that money being spent in a way you do not want there are two options:
1. Education - talk to them and make them financially literate and hope.
2. Keep the money in your own name whilst you want control over it.

The only trusts I found that had options to lock money away beyond say age 20 had pretty poor returns or high fees and tbh putting it in your own name was a better option, even after tax implications. A possible way around this is to put the money in some kind of fixed term account at age 17.5 (say a 3 or 5 year fix) but these are often only available to those aged over 18 so may not be possible.

What I have done is put some money in a JISA and gone for option 1. I would be wary however if the amount they got at age 18 was significant (high 5 figures or more), but that very much depends on how level headed the individual is. My son is also Autistic, but he is on the fairly sensible end of the scale - very very rules based - and if we told him the money was for a house deposit, at this stage I think he would consider that to be set in stone and wouldn't touch a penny of it for anything else!

wmb194

Dot18 said:

Hi,
I have three children who I have saved money for in a children's savings account over the years and they each hold about £8000 - I'm about to inherit some money from my mum and would like to add to this for when they are older and eg trying to find a deposit for a house. They are 17,15 and 13 and savings are currently in a children's savings account with me as a trustee. Are there any accounts with a decent interest rate that could be held in trust? One is autistic and past experience has shown they could be vulnerable to the influence of others so I want to add some protection but feel I should treat all three in the same way.

My suggestion would be to keep the money aside for them but in your own name. That way you can better determine how it is used. If you want to control the money past 18 (16 in Scotland) then you need to set up discretionary trusts and if I were you I'd do everything I could to avoid that headache. Obviously it might depend on the sums we're talking about.

xylophone

Your seventeen year old will  shortly have the right to access and control the existing savings account  - his siblings will have the same right  when they turn 18.

He/she could open a LISA with some of the money in that account.

If you are concerned about how any gift from your inheritance from your mother would be spent, better to keep it in your own name and gift when you are happier about the situation?

Dot18

Thank you everyone for all your advice

Nurse2047

skipton and YBS do children’s accounts in trust, someone posted something similar a few days ago 

Dot18

@Nurse2047 thank you - went for YBS