Starting a pension for my Grown up kids without them knowing - is this legal?

elsien

la531983 said:

grumpsthegit said:

Maybe a joint account would be the least erm.. dodgy thing - I could justify that at any time they could move back home so my address could be theirs. They do still treat the place like a hotel popping back to stay whenever it suites them! 

 

No! You cant open a joint account with them without their permission! Plus does she want to be financially linked to you?

Or more pertinently does the OP want to be linked to them, if they have any credit issues/debt, which they may or may not. 

grumpsthegit

elsien said:

la531983 said:

grumpsthegit said:

Maybe a joint account would be the least erm.. dodgy thing - I could justify that at any time they could move back home so my address could be theirs. They do still treat the place like a hotel popping back to stay whenever it suites them! 

 

No! You cant open a joint account with them without their permission! Plus does she want to be financially linked to you?

Or more pertinently does the OP want to be linked to them, if they have any credit issues/debt, which they may or may not. 

Ha ha yes you have a good point there :-)

Marcon

grumpsthegit said:

Marcon said:

Why not use your contributions to incentivise theirs - ie 'I'll put £x into your pension scheme if you put in £y'.

Nice idea but at their current stage in life they are struggling with the rent and bills so that would be a no starter - hence my desire to get them at least off the starting blocks - as everyone always says the sooner the pension starts the better.

 

If they are in employment, see if they are in the employer's scheme. If not, then it would be worth offering an incentive to get them to join (not least to ensure they get the employer contribution), with you paying the lion's share of their contribution. 

grumpsthegit

kempiejon said:

If the offspring are employed perhaps they already have some pension provision? Talking to them about that might be a good start. If they're struggling with rent and bills perhaps now is the time to refresh the financial education you gave them whilst younger as perhaps their straying from the path.

The older daughter is doing ok but saving for a house deposit so pension not at the top of her list.

The other is just out of Uni working as a supply teacher (so not guaranteed income) and her partner is a chef who has just had his hours cut due to the lovely NI increase pushed out. So no amount of financial education is going to help if the money does not exist.

Kernowshep

grumpsthegit said:

Nice idea but at their current stage in life they are struggling with the rent and bills so that would be a no starter - hence my desire to get them at least off the starting blocks - as everyone always says the sooner the pension starts the better.

If they are struggling with rent and bills, wouldn't supporting them now make more sense.  E.g. it doesn't just need to be a running cost subsidy, it could be for up skilling to increase future income or paying off debt/stopping debt being needed/paying for a car to get to better paying job elsewhere etc. etc.). Edited to add, or pay into a LISA if that is likely to work for them buying a house in the future.

Personally I'd have had far better use of (less) money when I was 10 or 20 years younger vs more money from a pension in 20, 30, 40 years time.

kempiejon

grumpsthegit said:

kempiejon said:

If the offspring are employed perhaps they already have some pension provision? Talking to them about that might be a good start. If they're struggling with rent and bills perhaps now is the time to refresh the financial education you gave them whilst younger as perhaps their straying from the path.

The older daughter is doing ok but saving for a house deposit so pension not at the top of her list.

The other is just out of Uni working as a supply teacher (so not guaranteed income) and her partner is a chef who has just had his hours cut due to the lovely NI increase pushed out. So no amount of financial education is going to help if the money does not exist.

That is sad. Have you decided not to encourage them with some sage advice about provision for a future after work? You started a thread because you want to secretly give them a pension. Can you be upfront about it as they don't have the money to do it themselves.
If I had two working children who hadn't started any pensions provision when HMRC and their employer should be giving them free money I would get on that, but we all see the world differently. Living below your means, accessing free money from company pensions, putting a bit aside each month, shopping for deals, switching suppliers all the ethos of moneysaving is all more important when there's less coming in and no disposabe cash. Hopefully eventually they can make some provision for later life.

grumpsthegit

kempiejon said:

grumpsthegit said:

kempiejon said:

If the offspring are employed perhaps they already have some pension provision? Talking to them about that might be a good start. If they're struggling with rent and bills perhaps now is the time to refresh the financial education you gave them whilst younger as perhaps their straying from the path.

The older daughter is doing ok but saving for a house deposit so pension not at the top of her list.

The other is just out of Uni working as a supply teacher (so not guaranteed income) and her partner is a chef who has just had his hours cut due to the lovely NI increase pushed out. So no amount of financial education is going to help if the money does not exist.

That is sad. Have you decided not to encourage them with some sage advice about provision for a future after work? You started a thread because you want to secretly give them a pension. Can you be upfront about it as they don't have the money to do it themselves.
If I had two working children who hadn't started any pensions provision when HMRC and their employer should be giving them free money I would get on that, but we all see the world differently. Living below your means, accessing free money from company pensions, putting a bit aside each month, shopping for deals, switching suppliers all the ethos of moneysaving is all more important when there's less coming in and no disposabe cash. Hopefully eventually they can make some provision for later life.

Yes I am going to encourage them to contribute to a pension when the time is right - now is not the right time - I can see that myself, so antagonising them by preaching about something they cannot afford is not going to be constructive. Hence my desire to do something in the background. But I have limited funds so all i will be doing is giving them a head start till they have the ability to do this themselves. The idea of doing it secretly is (or was) so that they did not think, ok great dads got the pension covered and then not bother themselves. 
If you think kids in their early twenty's are going to be focused on pensions and switching suppliers and shopping for deals I think you are mistaken.

I think i will draw a line under this now.

kempiejon

Missed opportunities I suppose, I know a handful of 20 year olds thanks, you're letting your prejudices out there I think, as some have pensions with their part time jobs while studying.
You can only do what you've done so dont regret it. Are you going to give the money to get started even if you can't do it secretly? Be a nice thing for a dad to do as he didn't give them the steer to have started for themselves.

LHW99

The other is just out of Uni working as a supply teacher

She can probably elect for her part time service to be eligible for pension (if it's not automatic)

BikingBud

kempiejon said:

grumpsthegit said:

kempiejon said:

If the offspring are employed perhaps they already have some pension provision? Talking to them about that might be a good start. If they're struggling with rent and bills perhaps now is the time to refresh the financial education you gave them whilst younger as perhaps their straying from the path.

The older daughter is doing ok but saving for a house deposit so pension not at the top of her list.

The other is just out of Uni working as a supply teacher (so not guaranteed income) and her partner is a chef who has just had his hours cut due to the lovely NI increase pushed out. So no amount of financial education is going to help if the money does not exist.

That is sad. Have you decided not to encourage them with some sage advice about provision for a future after work? You started a thread because you want to secretly give them a pension. Can you be upfront about it as they don't have the money to do it themselves.
If I had two working children who hadn't started any pensions provision when HMRC and their employer should be giving them free money I would get on that, but we all see the world differently. Living below your means, accessing free money from company pensions, putting a bit aside each month, shopping for deals, switching suppliers all the ethos of moneysaving is all more important when there's less coming in and no disposabe cash. Hopefully eventually they can make some provision for later life.

I think this is a great proposal.

Commit to provide the "lost" funding that they invest via their employer. They get the benefit of the pension and you make up the shortfall in their net cash so as not to impact upon their living expenses etc.

And trying to emphasise the importance of generating their own surplus, by whatever means possible, will pay dividends across all of their spending/saving for the rest of their lives.