MSE News: Warning: 'We're being forced to close and move £1,000s from our kid's Junior ISA'

MSE_Abby

If you're looking to open a junior ISA (JISA) for your child, first check whether they have a forgotten Child Trust Fund (CTF). Around 1.7 million CTF accounts were set up automatically, meaning it can be easy to double up. One MoneySaver who thought he was doing the right thing investing for his kid in an ISA has a salient warning for others…

Read the full story:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2026/07/child-trust-fund-junior-isa-warning/

If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.

surreysaver

When were Junior ISAs invented? Surely most (or everyone) who had a CTF must be 18 by now?

kaMelo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82084041#Comment_82084041

According to Gov.uk;

A Child Trust Fund is a long-term tax-free savings account for children born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011.

So still a way to go, the youngest will reach 18 in January 2029

cloud_dog

The Gov / HMRC have always been very clear that you can only have a CTF or a JISA (cash and S&S).

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82084914#Comment_82084914

But that's not really the point of the story, which is that the parent concerned claimed to be unaware of the existence of the CTF, rather than (consciously) trying to use both a CTF and a JISA:

[Hargreaves Lansdown] says that when the JISA was opened, we would have signed a declaration saying that our son had no CTF. Of course, we had no idea that he had a CTF, as we were not involved in the process of opening one!

putneypalace

The fact that it was a £50 CTF voucher suggests the child was born at the very end of the CTF experiment, when no one was talking about these any more.

CTF was in the form of a “voucher”, so people can be forgiven for not realising the government had opened an actual account in their name without ever telling them, and compromising their tax status!

it shouldn’t be possible to open an ISA for a child born before the cut off, as almost all of them were eligible. There should be a red flag of some sort?

eskbanker

it shouldn’t be possible to open an ISA for a child born before the cut off, as almost all of them were eligible. There should be a red flag of some sort?

It has to be possible to open a junior ISA for this cohort, as this is a prerequisite for transferring in their CTFs, and obviously once they've done so, it's then viable thereafter to open further JISAs, so a simple age barrier wouldn't be appropriate - there is a flag raised, by HL at least, in terms of the application declaration about whether or not the child holds a CTF.

DavidT67

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82084920#Comment_82084920

The then parent or legal guardian would have been sent the CTF voucher, they would also have been sent a reminder to invest it, before the UK govt. did it for them.

Around 28% of CTF accounts where opened by the UK Govt. as the parent(s) failed to act, claiming ignorance or apathy is no excuse. Amazing how hard it is to give people free money !

Perhaps the persons in the article weren't UK citizens ? Are didn't submit a Child Benefit claim ? Are didn't register the birth in the UK ? But somehow the UK Govt. allocated their child a NINO and a CTF voucher…

There's an explanation, which the article doesn't give.

putneypalace

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82085996#Comment_82085996

Opening a Junior ISA is a separate process to turning a CTF account into a Junior ISA. There could and should be a flag that prevents a Junior ISA being opened in the former way, where the account holder was born before 2011.

As I suspect you know, it’s not possible to hold more than one Junior S&S ISA and one Junior Cash ISA.

the point her seems to be that the account holder (or their parents) had no idea that the government had put a measly £50 into an account (which is quite different from being sent a voucher) and that this had invalidated their account. That does seem barmy…

putneypalace

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82086227#Comment_82086227

by the time the CTF went down to £50, I don’t think the government was really shouting about this stuff. It was regarded as something of an embarrassment by the coalition that they had to withdraw the £250+£250 gifts to save cash, so they phased them out with a token £50 one-off payment for six months, and did so with almost no publicity, IIRC. It’s perfectly possible to have missed this entirely, and I think a bit harsh to call this ignorance or apathy. Cf. WASPI women, who had their finger in their ears for years…

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82086716#Comment_82086716

The point remains that it's (at least sometimes) valid for those in the CTF age range to open a JISA without it being a CTF conversion, so they obviously shouldn't be prevented from doing so...