Starting a pension fund for adult children

Albermarle

howard3844 said:

as mentioned in previous comments if the payment is made by "other persons than the account holder", do they get the tax relief. Seems odd if they do ? If so give the money to the "child" and let them invest it.

The pension is in the child’s name, so they get the tax relief they are entitled to, whether they contribute the money themselves or or a third party does it 
For the third party the contribution is strictly a gift to the child,  and has no impact on their own tax/tax relief position.
One thing to watch is that the pension providers add basic rate tax relief automatically to all contributions. It is up to the pension owner ( the child in this case) not to add more than they should 

Caeraugirl

Thanks everyone for your comments and thoughts, it's been really helpful and has given me a lot to think about.

cloud_dog

Just as a comment, we started to contribute to ours when they were about 16 / 17.  We still only pay the minimum each month, and out of surplus income, and (importantly) this is in addition to supporting University and LISA contributions

The reasoning to open and to contribute back then was to just ensure they had something open. Somewhere money could be placed out of reach of any abusive type relationship, somewhere future inheritance could be placed, and as mentioned 'out of surplus income' rather than them possibly dealing with lump sum considerations (IHT / deprivation of assets, yada yada).