Child trust fund.

[Clafairy]

Hi,

I need your help please! Nothing on the various Govenment websites and I keep hitting a brick wall!

Anyway, my little man was entitled to a child trust fund voucher and I am trying to find out where the money is invested - whether it was done by birth family or the govenment if birth family did not do it.

The helpline is now shutdown as all 'entitled children' will have been sent the information and parents know where the fund is! I have called HMRC but they have no information now and say they keep getting calls with the same question and the only infomation page has no contact details on it!

Has anyone manged to track down their child's account or has it disappeared into the ether with the money never to be seen again?

I am going to keep trying the CAB if they answer the phone and just keep searching for information on various sites but to be honest I think I will get more answers here!

For reference he was born in 2009 and probably entitled to the initial £250 and then the additional £250 for lower household incomes (less than £16,000 and something)

Thank you.

[Lilka]

Someone asked this same question on AUK recently and got this answer

"the below info is definately current as it was only received a couple of weeks ago. Essentially you need to send in the original adoption order or new birth certificate (no photocopies) of your child / children to:

The Childrens Mutual, Freepost RSLG-JXCL-ZSXB, PO Box 1137, Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham, GL50 9QS or call their helpline which is: 0845 077 1899"

So I guess you could ring that number and ask? I couldn't find anything else at all anywhere I'm afraid. You could try using the site Natasha listed

I guess they must have sent the letter you should have got to either SS or his birth parents, so I guess you could also phone SS and ask if they got the letter and do they have the details of it?

By the way - Once/if you can get hold of it, change provider if possible. DS's first mum made a payment into the account after the adoption was finalised, and the provider sent her a receipt thing with his new name on it. Which was fine security wise for us, because DD2 had already spilled our surname, and his first name change wasn't to protect him from her, but other people. But would not be great news for others. And wasn't great for me, because I was completely unnerved by it when I found it. Plus some providers sent the annual statement to bp's by accident because they still had their details and got mixed up. So obvously once that happened I moved the fund somewhere else so that only I had details of it!

[Italiangreyhound]

Wow Lilka you are a mine of information.

[floatyjosmum]

I would ring the la that was involved with your ds - I know our legal team deal with changing them over so maybe yours do something similar

[Clafairy]

See I knew you lot would know the answer! Who needs government information websites when there's Mumsnet! Will try tomorrow and thank you for the info about changing providers as where I live everyone knows everyone and birth family is not too far away and we are the only family with our surname!

I'll pass on the info to the LA as they haven't needed to do this since the helpline closed so will help them too for future families!

[Crikeyblimey]

I work for a LA. We have a leaflet that we send to adoptive parents about CTFs. If you can't get any joy, message me and I'll email the leaflet to you.

[Piffyonarock]

With both of ours the LA had set up trust funds so they had their initial £250, plus our LA had made a payment which I think must have been in lieu of anyone else being able to do so. The LA gave us the details of where they had opened the accounts and we were then able to apply to the banks to take over operating them which meant we could then move them if we wished. Ours were both in foster care from birth, so I guess that's why the LA had set the funds up.

[Clafairy]

Found this finally!

www.hmrc.gov.uk/ctf/adoption-carers-factsheet.pdf.

I will be hunting it down now!

Thank you

[FamiliesShareGerms]

I went round in circles on this issue too... LA thought DD "must probably" have a CTF, but didn't know who could tell me any details. In the end HMRC were able to tell me, but I had to deal with a special team because I'm a government employee (I know DD's CTF is nothing to do with my employment status, but rules is rules....).

If you get no joy from HMRC or the LA, try a letter to HMRC or your MP

You have to get the adoption order before you can take over responsibility for the CTF