Child Bonds

[familyman3]

I have child bonds for both of my boys and one is due to mature in 3 years when he is 18 and the other in 5 years for my youngest son. Hopefully it will give them a start in life with a few thousand if I feel they are mature enough at the time of maturing - if not we may think about delaying until they are a little older. Whatever happens though, the money will be theirs. The main reason for writing this is to see what other users think of my situation. I am 47 now and have an older brother and sister and we all had bonds saved for us as I remember an insurance man collecting the subs each fortnight from my parents who used to leave the collection books ready for the rep to collect and sign - I remember all our names on the books. I am getting to the point don't worry! My brother was the first to receive his and then my sister and a few years later I remember the insurance man signing off the last subscription for mine. I waited at 18 years of age patiently but by dad never gave it to me. About six months later the same insurance man called to collect subs for some other insurance policy my dad had and asked if I have used it for something nice and being the polite but slightly nervous young man I was who never wanted to upset my parents, I just went along with him and said that I would probably save it. A few years went by and when I was about 35 I asked my mum why my siblings had been given theirs and I had not been given mine and she told me that there was never a policy for me. Still being the young man who lacked confidence I did not push it further and I asked both my mum and dad the same question when I was 30 and still got the same response even though I then told them that I have seen the collection book as a child with my name on it - they still upheld the fact that they had never had one for me. Now for some unknown reason I was recently going through my financial details to make sure they are up to date and something made me send an email to my current life assurance company who I remember being the company that our childhood bonds were with and I received a reply to confirm the records of a policy held by my father in my name which matured when I was 18 and was signed for and transferred to my fathers bank account. This confirmed what I always thought - that my father kept my matured bond instead of giving me something to help me at the start of my coming of age. I was always a good child and I would have been ashamed to do anything to upset my parents and I loved being at home and helping with everything from cleaning the house to maintaining the garden so I don't know why he did what he did. My parents were not short of money ever but my dad was always very tight with money, if he ever found money whilst out and about he would always keep it and tell us to not mention it to anyone. He was also a very controlling man with all of us keeping his financial matters away from even my mum. I now have evidence of what should have been mine but it is 30 years since that date but the feeling is so very strong that I want to confront both of them with this evidence and ask them to be honest with me. What do you guys think? What would your course of action be. I am only posting this because I could not think of doing anything like this to by children if if I was hard up. Love to know what you think? familyman3

[Blessthekids]

Not sure investments is the right place for this sort of question. You may want to move it to chat or relationships.

[OKhitmewithit]

In a legal sense it was theft. However as they had saved it perhaps they felt that their need at the time was greater than yours (mortgage payment or whatever). What are you hoping to achieve. You could pursue this but the money is likely long gone. I can’t see that the police would do anything, but I might be wrong.

One point you could pursue is with the insurance company. Who did they pay this money to. Unfortunately I expect you are out of time to complain as you knew about the problem and said nothing for too many years.

[Pinotwoman82]

I would probably move this to chat or relationships, you would get more of a response I’m sure