Will wording on gifted shares to a child, does it limit the trustee's options?

vacheron

Hi all. 

If a will leaves shares to a child stating:

"To <child>, all my shares and interests in any stocks and shares I own at the date of my death upon <child> attaining the age of 18." 

Does this mean that the share allocations must be kept exactly as bequeathed by the deceased until the child is 18, or does this mean that the value of the shares have been bequeathed, meaning that the trustees could sell the shares and re-invest the proceeds into something more diversified, (which may be considerably less risky) until they turn 18?

Any insights would be appreciated.

Keep_pedalling

No it doesn’t, it would be down to the trustees to manage those assets on behalf of the beneficiary. For instance if the beneficiary was a teenager it would be unwise not to sell and convert to cash as short term equities, especially individual shares, are high risk.

vacheron

Thanks for the response. The gift currently comprises of three individual UK shares, (2x FTSE 100 and 1x FTSE 250). The recipient is still young so it would be 10+ years until the trust matures so could still be invested, but the trustee agrees that continuing to hold just 3x UK shares seems a high risk.

Keep_pedalling

vacheron said:

Thanks for the response. The gift currently comprises of three individual UK shares, (2x FTSE 100 and 1x FTSE 250). The recipient is still young so it would be 10+ years until the trust matures so could still be invested, but the trustee agrees that continuing to hold just 3x UK shares seems a high risk.

Individual shares are very high risk, selling and putting them in a multi asset fund would be a lot safer.