Bit of a weird one - GMIL giving money to DC but wanting to control it

[NCforFamilyKerfuffle]

Genuinely not sure if we're being unreasonable so wanted to get a consensus.

DH's grandmother has a lot of money. She's mostly very generous with it in terms of gifts and things but there's always a palaver about it all or strings attached in some ways. Some parts of the family jump through hoops and put up with things (eg 'I'll take you on a holiday of a lifetime... if I can come with you and dictate everything we do at every given point' or 'I'll pay for blinds to be fitted in your house, but I'm going to tell you which is the best blind company in the area and be there to oversee it when they come to quote and then give you strong advice on what colour blind is the right one'). DH tends to disengage as much as possible when she gets especially overbearing and I figure it's his circus and monkeys and take my lead from him. It means sometimes we accept his GM's generosity (and are polite and grateful and make a fuss about it / her) but when the strings are too much he tends to step back.

GMIL has just said she'd like to give our DC £500 each into a savings account. This is awesome, particularly because they don't have accounts of their own yet - my (significantly poorer) family have given them money over the years but I've just chucked it in a disused savings account of mine to keep it separate and never got round to sorting the admin. But GMIL wants their birth certificates so she can go to a bank of her choosing and set up the bank accounts herself, naming herself as the trustee of the account and keeping the books/cards/whatever it is kids get nowadays so she can add money whenever she wants at her discretion.

It just feels a bit weird but I don't know if we're being unreasonable saying that.

We're happy to set the kids up bank accounts and give her the details (even the books if that's what she wants although it feels a bit odd) but it feels weird having her named trustee, not least because she's in her seventies - if something happens to her before the kids are of age how would the accounts be administered?

MIL (who is pretty much grandmother-whisperer on these occasions) can't explain why GMIL feels such a need to have control of the book and be trustee of the account but says:

a) it's not her being controlling
b) it's not her distrusting us with the money
c) it's not her reserving the right to somehow claim it back (although frankly this isn't a concern - GMIL is honourable in her way, just likes to be controlling... bearing in mind during a random family discussion about lottery wins she told the assembled throng if she won tens of millions she wouldn't give people cash but would buy everyone anything they wanted, houses, cars, etc, as long as they came to her for the money so she could oversee it)

MIL also (and this was a massive tactical error) told us when we were discussing it with her that if we went and opened our own accounts for the children GMIL would pay in the £500 but 'probably wouldn't ever give us any more' which frankly put both DH and I's noses out of joint and left DH saying he wouldn't be bribed in that way by his family.

Should we just suck it up and give her the birth certificates and let her get on with it, secure in the knowledge that it makes her happy, the kids will end up with some money and, frankly, if for whatever reason they don't they'd never miss it anyway? I veer from feeling it's not a hill worth dying on to feeling uncomfortable and a bit insulted without really being able to pin down why.

So. Are we being unreasonable to want to be trustees to our kids' bank accounts?

Let her for it. If she wants to control how they spend it, well let’s call a spade a spade, your children will have it either way in their twenties at most and it will help with uni fees, travel, a car or a house deposit depending how much she adds to it.

I’d be a little reluctant to hand over orig birth certs so perhaps certified copies might do? I think, in time, you might be able to add a second postal address to the account so you can see, what if anything, she has deposited.

What happens if she dies? Who becomes the 'banker'?
She can apply for bc herself. Anyone can order one and anyone can open an accumt for a dc.
I reported exh for stashing cash in my dc's account that were def not for my dc.

My DM tried to open an account for my DS as she has done with her other DGC. Very happy for her to do this by the way but she was told that GP bank accounts are no longer allowed anyway.

anyone can open an accumt for a dc.

Doesn't seem to be true anymore from what others have said.

She does sound controlling normally but this sounds fine. It's not like a person is only allowed one account, in fact they don't even have to know about it.

Why don't you take the opportunity while you have their birth certs at hand to also set up accounts for all of them, even if theres nothing to go in it right now. Even set up two - a savings and an everyday account if they are old enough to need it. Gmil can also do hers.

Like pp said, if you found out she was putting some money in a shoe box for them or planning to allocate some in her will, you wouldn't say "give it to us now!". You would just think 'ok well they will get when they get it, if they don't, fine'. I see this as similar.

I’d say “Thank you very much, GMIL, that’s really generous. Very happy for you to set up the accounts and keep all the books etc. but could you add DH or MIL as an extra trustee? Just to avoid any problems if for any reason you weren’t able to access them?”

Get MIL to whisper to her - it’s only sensible for the sole trustee of a child’s account not to be elderly, so a younger second trustee would be useful!

Last year when I reported exh I was told by Virgin money this was true.

My in laws did this- though whatever accounts they've opened didn't require birth certificates.

I was a bit but fundamentally it doesn't do any harm and my kids will benefit. The only thing I did check was that they weren't ISAs as this would have impacted on what we could have opened ourselves.

My MIL is mega controlling over cash (but they are really generous too). They gifted us the deposit for our house from GMILs estate, but insisted the money went straight from them to the solicitor and also dictated the timing when they were prepared to hand it over- they were very determined that the solicitor was not going to benefit from interest with it being in their account for an extra 2 days

I accept that for whatever reason they don't trust us, we've long since refused any gifts directed at us because of this weirdness, but I'm happy for the kids to benefit from their generosity (assuming they actually let them have it when they come of age )

Due to her advanced years it's not advisable for her to be an account administrator, no. In the event of her death this would need to be all sorted out under her will....it's a time consuming complication you really don't need. Say you'd like the deposits, fantastic. Say you'd like the kids to have Junior ISAS and for one parent to be the administrators. To be clear, money cannot be withdrawn from a Junior ISA until the child turns 18, at which point it converts to a standard ISA and is the mature child's money to do with as they wish. The money would be safe and you could show her the balances whenever she wishes. She obviously doesn't trust her younger family with finances? Why is this? She's getting old...other people need to read Martin Lewis etc and get more on board with financial products and management and reassure her that you have the ability to do the job well. I must admit just chucking money randomly into some ancient un used bank account wouldn't inspire confidence in me!

Why is it controlling? I had an account in trust for my niece and I had the book because it was me putting money in for when she was older? How on Earth is it controlling? Staggered!

By the way, I would never ever give anyone original birth certificates on principal. Certified copies, maybe. They stay in my hands under lock and key actually.

Just one thing to bear in mind; my parents did this for my children so by the time they were 18 they had saved about £20k for each of them.
These accounts were with the Nationwide, so when my kids set up a normal bank account ready for university they could see and access this money.

She'll get diddly squat interest on any savings account. A junior ISA is by far the best idea and no, whilst the child can only have one, this doesn't have any bearing on a parent's ISA allowance which is totally separate.

Ours had savings accounts that DH and I were trustees of and when they were 13 we switched them to bank accounts in their names.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

The other stuff might be controlling, but this is perfectly normal

There was another very similar post to this. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3724851-Mil-and-money

My aunt opened college savings accounts for my two grandchildren. Her name and the child's name were both on the account and they both got quarterly statements so the parents could keep track of her deposits. When she died they were both still minors so control of the account passed to the parents.

Back in time is spot on

Op we've had similar from dh family and I wrote a thread about what we should do and it's neither thread already mentioned.

Unless people have experience of controlling with money it's hard to understand what's going on.
People said to me that by the time pils hand money over at 18 they are going to be quite old.
But its the control aspect I rebel against.
Once money is handed to dc at 18 however its theirs to do what they want with. Which is good in terms of controlling people bit bad in view of 18 child having lots of cash!!

Fish cake

I'm staggered you read about the other things op mentioned Gmil doing and are staggered

Let her crack on and open whatever account she wants and then you also open an account for any bits of money gifted by others. Anyone can have more than one bank account and granny need never know about the second account.

Re banks accounts and saving for the dc.
You can open multiple accounts as long as they are not junior isas.

They can have two isas but total limit just over 4 grand. Cash isa or and stock and shares isa.
My dc have building society account I pay into... This will be for them to spend and save into as they wish, teens, cinema, clothes etc..
They have a cash isa.... Which will be for car driving.. Etc (we hope).
And finally a stocks and shares isa. Hopefully for longer term saving..

My dad has opened accounts for all 3 of mine and had the birth certificates.
The difference is that I trust my dad 100%. If you trust that person do it. If you don't then don't.

I keep thinking it would depend a bit on the ages of the kids?

There’s pluses and minuses at different ages.

Example: my (similar thinking) DM tried to give DD cash vouchers and even a debit bank card as presents when she was very young (4-6yo). It was confusing as hell for DD, who only understood she got a tiny piece of plastic as a present . DM would get mightily cross she wasn’t sufficiently excited and grateful, it was a big faff all round. Younger ages is a good time to set up accounts in their name, but not to expect to talk to them about it, or expect thanks, or touch the accounts other than regular deposits.

I’m afraid if you kids are older or mid teens, you’re handing Granny an ongoing channel of manipulation with these proposed accounts. One that is secret from you.

I’ve grown up with relatives who are big on doing this for their own selfish reasons, so it does happen. My Granny tried to do the same. One of her daughters said yes to it, one (my mum) said no. My cousins (in their 20-40’s) regularly get ‘paid’ to visit Granny, or do things her way. We get no money, but at least we get to live without this guilting and control over us.

Also Granny is now so old that it’s become a huge issue that she wove these financial webs. She’s gone through her money, but can’t resist writing cheques to keep her power over others up. The family are tearing their hair out trying to shut down random accounts and appoint trustees for her, so she can preserve what’s left to live on. Lord only knows what would happen to your kids’ accounts if your GMIL ends up in a mess, with trustees or dies.

Not saying it’s all dire, but plenty of people on this thread seem to be discounting any possible negatives, saying that it’s just Granny being generous, etc. I know from experience that it’s worth considering this offer carefully and doing a bit more research into the consequences and set up. To preserve relationships, transparency and the actual money too.

Tip: tell her YOUR financial planner is interested in the particulars of the set up because it feeds into your family finances and future- could impact taxes/benefits/loans/etc to have money in their names? It could even be true .

She definitely can't open a bank account without you - my dgfil is trying to open up my baby a credit bank account but because I don't understand it and I want to be careful with things like credit I haven't gone with him to open it. His girlfriend is the one opening the account because she works for the credit union or whatever it is but she's said there's no way to do it without myself or my partner there.
Just say youve already got one open, you'd like all the money to be together to get lots of interest, so she can pay the £500 into that account and if she says she won't give any more after that your children aren't missing out because they never actually had the money in the first place and I'm assuming aren't aware she was going to gift more than £500?

I'd let her get on with it but also open up a second bank account for each of them and put the money you already have plus any money from your family in there. Her accounts for them don't need to be the only ones, surely?