To ask how I can successfully ringfence this money? (Please don’t post for moral judgement)

[Jaalp]

I am a single parent to a 3 year old who will start school in the next two years. I have saved up a significant amount of money for schools fees. As a single parent I am constantly worried about job loss or anything else that could affect things. I am aware that if for some reason I was made redundant, for example, if I have more than a certain amount in savings then I would be expected to use this before claiming universal credit etc.

I have no intention of claiming universal credit but life happens and I have to be conscious of the potential things that could happen.

My question is, is there any way to put this money in an account for my child that would be protected as theirs and not counted in an assessment for universal credit etc should that ever happen?

Please don’t make this is a private school bashing thread or about playing the system etc. I’ve worked hard all my life and intend to continue to do so. Thanks.

Yes but you have enough savings if the worst was to happen to provide for your child and keep a roof over her head. At least you don't have nothing like many UC claimants.

Yes when it’s fiddling the taxpayer! The single working mother does not justify it I’m afraid

You can’t pay your bills (including school fees) from a child’s account.

Once the money is in a child’s account you can’t withdraw it. It belongs to them.

I suggest you buy a massive diamond and hide under your mattress and hope you never get a break in.

You clearly have a great job if you’ve saved up this much, I suggest your actual best bet is to take out income protection/critical illness cover. You can clearly afford it.

Yes I would consider it unacceptable.

If I'm in a position to claim UC any savings would be taken into account. So should the OP's be.

You’ve saved up money. You lose your job. You say to the benefits office I’ve saved money up for a luxury holiday, school fees, massive deluxe shopping trips, whatever for the next twelve years or so. I don’t want this counted as my money so that I can claim benefits. What do you think should be said? Yeah no worries here’s your tax payer funded benefits and enjoy your holidays etc?

@OrwellianTimes
You can’t pay your bills (including school fees) from a child’s account.
Once the money is in a child’s account you can’t withdraw it. It belongs to them.

For a child's account you are right. But a trust fund in name of child for education, then you can.

Then what is about? Surely not your child's welfare when you are happy to spend money that could be the difference between them going to bed hungry.

Oh stop it. I am a lone parent and you sound silly.

The trouble is that spending your money on school fees is exactly "spending money however I choose" . It's your money, not your child's and you "choose" to spend it on school fees. It's ironic that you want the money to buy your child advantage over the children of the taxpayers who you want to fund your choice

The welfare state is paid for by hard-working people and should not be used to fund private school places for grifters

I think you can put it into a trust which will protect the cash and it will not be counted as savings in any benefits assessment. Have a chat with a local solicitor

The country is in the state that it is partly because of people like you who feel entitled to other people's hard earned money to pay for your necessities while you spend your own money to buy your child the privilege and advantage that private education brings

Exactly.

I hope you don’t ever have to, too. But if you did, and told them you didn’t have any savings when in fact you did but wanted to reserve them for paying school fees, that’s called "being a benefits cheat".

Morally I think it's disgusting to want to work out how to effectively hide money away so that you'd be entitled to claim a benefit designed to help people with no money, so that you can continue to pay for a luxury service that isn't a necessity.

Legally speaking, you can probably do it in a trust. But god I hate people who think like you.

This.
You’re buying privilege and status which will benefit you (if you’re into that sort of thing).

Even if it’s not OP’s money anymore?

If those exist it's about time they were made illegal or at least form part of any assessment for benefits.

I didn't go to private school / intend to send my kids there but I understand where you're coming from. It always seemed ridiculous to me that you could pay into the system your whole life and then be penalised for having been cautious and saved as much money as you could.

I'm afraid I don't have any practical suggestions but if you have the money to pay for financial advice they are likely to find ways around this for you.

Hmm.

I think that the odds are that if you have a good enough job to have saved this amount, then you are likely to get a generous redundancy payout should he worst happen. You are also likely to have a skillset that would allow you to find a replacement job relatively quickly.

I think that the real issue here is how to reframe for yourself that you are in a position of relative privilege and how to focus on the positives rather than catastrophise.

Well we await the budget with baited breath! I work in wealth planning and we are very very busy pre budget with lots of very wealthy people doing what they can to protect their cash

Op, you're getting a hard time because you are acting like an entitled cheeky fucker.

Private School (which I have zero issues with btw) is a luxury. It would be no different to me saying 'I've put £30k in a savings account for a retirement villa in Spain/a car I really want/a loft conversion so how do I ring fence that money so I can claim benefits if I lose my job'. There is zero difference. You can't arbitrarily decide whether something is 'special enough' to be above being touched when times are hard. That is not how the system works, which is absolutely how things should be.

I'm not bashing you, but you are not the only hard-working single parent who has saved money for education for their child - be that private or tertiary or whatever - who, if they lose their job/circumstances change, will have to dip into that money.

You need to understand that all adult life, and all parenting finances, is something of a lottery. My DH and I have a pot of cash invested for my DSC to use as house deposits in the future. But if the worst happens that pot will get used WAY before we have the audacity to ask for taxpayer money to subsidise life luxuries.

You need to reframe what you are asking here. The fact is is important to you and about your child does not make this a sacred or special request. You are asking about how to (hypothetically) commit benefit fraud, and that is a terrible example to be setting for your child.

When you say been cautious if you can afford to save a massive amount like bloody school fees you don't need the gkv help. It's not about being cautious many folks I know are paid less then 25 k a year full time and can be very cautious but can't afford to save much at all not thousands any way .

@Justcallmebebes im not sure I am classed as ‘very wealthy. I still have a mortgage

Really bad idea to give it to someone else.. firstly to trust someone with that sort of money. And it would impact on their eligibility for benefits if they fell into hard times

OP I can guarantee that your child would be extremely uncomfortable being at a fee paying private school if their only parent was on UC. Kids can be pretty cruel. Your child would stick out. Plus the clubs, trips, uniform, endless pieces of sports kit, it's all really expensive. I don't think this is what either they or you would really want.

It is her money being used for her family while the taxpayer feeds her family.

Whatever the technicalities, it's deprivation of assets IMO.