AIBU to refuse my 18-year-old access to his savings?

[TheSereneBird]

My son has just turned 18. To say he has been a nightmare for the last 3 years is an understatement. He failed all his GCSEs. Only ended up sitting 3 of them but failed. I recalled the papers and he had barely written anything. I helped him find an apprenticeship. He’s done that for a year but it’s been very rocky. He’s now been fired with just a few months to go for consistently not turning up.
I’ve pleaded with him to save his job and I k who he does want to save it but won’t face up to it. He’s been in trouble with the police twice for cannabis possession. He was in front of the magistrates just before he turned 18 and they gave him a stern warning that if he is caught again he will be in an adult court.
he has moved out - he’s done this before sleeping on a friends floor.

He has a savings account that we have kept for him since he was a baby with 10a of thousands in it - money from grandparents as well over the years. He knows about it and as he is now 18 he knows that he can have the money transferred to him legally and there is nothing we can do about it. I don’t want him to touch it. It was meant to be for a deposit for his first home to help him on his way. He will waste it on rent and probably drugs.

he is seeing a therapist and I know he wants the help. He has a severe adhd so everything seems such a struggle for him and even sticking to his appointments is a nightmare. It costs is £200 a session but I’d pay the world to help him. I just don’t know how to help him. He won’t listen and does as he pleases.

he is now jobless and sleeping on a friends floor. He has a good home and all the love and support he could want or need. He knows he is welcome back anytime. I’m so afraid he will try to access the money. AIBU to deny him it. I’ve told him we put in in a child account to benefit from the tax savings but it is not his until we give it to him. With no job I’m worried he will be desperate and do something stupid. AIBU? I feel so stressed out.

Hes had an assessment with an addiction counsellor who specialises in adhd. I don’t have sight of it as the details are confidential between him and the counsellor. But is clear he is addicted relying on weed to much and suffers a lot of anxiety. Hopefully the therapy will help him to turn himself around.

Whilst I understand your reasons for not wanting him to have it. Legally it’s his. You can’t deny him access to it.

As a parent of a child who got access to his JISA of circa £65k when he turned 18 (which he knew was for all of his uni costs, and has used it for nothing but that) I came on here to tell you YABU. However, having read your post I'm wrong - we are fortunate in that my DS is hard working and very respectful of the money we've saved for him, but it sounds like yours is the polar opposite, and would piss it away in minutes!

Sadly, it is legally his so I doubt there is much you can do, but in your position I certainly wouldn't facilitate making it easy for him to access - make him do all the leg work to get hold of it.

I’d do anything I could to stop him getting at it. Of course it’s legally his and ultimately, you can’t stop him, but I would try and draw the process out for as long as possible.

There is no legal grounds for her to refuse him the passport. He can report her for theft if she withholds it. If he's feeling generous towards her he could report it as lost & get a replacement. But it doesn't sound like he's feeling generous towards her at the moment.

I feel that finding out what sort of an account it is should have been a priority before he was eighteen so it’s even more important now. I’d destroy the passport though.

Re - telling him, not sure what would happen you hadn’t told him and he claimed benefits and did not declare savings because he didn’t know about them, who would HMRC come after?

deep sympathy @TheSereneBird . Thank you for starting this thread.

My DC is 17 and may end up in a not-too dissimilar situation (though did manage a small number of GCSE passes) - however, I realised a few years ago that this kind of situation could arise and I stopped putting money into the Child Trust Fund account because I felt the risk would be too great that my DC wouldn't have the maturity to make any kind of good decision about large sums of money as soon as reaching 18. Whilst the CTF account has about £10k in it, the rest of what we have put aside is in my name and I have retained control (though in a dedicated account so separate from our other savings) - at a cost of losing the tax advantages of saving in the child's name unfortunately but that seemed a sensible price to pay.

Unfortunately unless you can get a Court Order saying otherwise (which is possible) your son will be able to get this money, it is legally his and he is legally an adult.

It is possible to apply to the Court of Protection to prevent this, but it's quite a drastic step. This is a really useful guide:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64818cf6b32b9e0012a963fd/making-financial-decisions-for-young-people-who-lack-capacity-parent-carer-toolkit.pdf

You have done your best, raised a challenging child, he has to get himself out of this one.
One thing that might help if you find an NA group in the area that specialises in weed, bring him along, the old timers with lived experience will bend his ear.
Addiction in adhd can go hand in glove.
It’s going to take him much longer to mature than his peers. Contact family support groups of users, you’ll find many families who have children with adhd that are in the same situation.
The money is not important, he will blow it, it is his to blow, hopefully it wakes him up.
His head is scrambled too. I would go the opposite way ignore his badness, take the focus of his failings.
There is 1000’s of influencers out there in drug recovery who suffer from ADHD. Their journeys aren’t easy for them or their families.
The line between self medicating and addiction is thin. Weed relaxes the adhd short term.
What about medical cannibas if he agrees to give up smoking? I think you can get oil or tablets.

He knows about it as my DH told him some time ago. It was part of a negotiation to keep him on the straight and narrow letting him know that if he worked hard and held down his job etc we would help him buy his own place with the money we’d saved for him. But I always told my husband is was a massive mistake to tell him it was in his name and he could access it when he was 18. I knew it would come back to bite us but my DH can be very naive. He is now as stressed about it as me. Again our only saving grace is he is so disorganised. He can’t even sort out Apple Pay on his phone. I can drag it out. Sure. I guess my bigger problem is what the hell to do with him. I’ve begged him to try and save his job. College will keep him on as long as he gets his portfolio up to date and can help transfer him to another employer. But he won’t engage with it. He’d rather take the easy route pretend it’s not happening and convince himself he will have another job by the end of the week. He has no idea.

This is what I thought - they’d come after him. You’ve really created such a mess unintentionally here.

I have a son who sounds scarily similar, and not one penny was saved for him in his name for this reason.

Support groups for families affected by marijuana or drug use in the UK include Nar-Anon UK, a 12-step program specifically for the friends and family of addicts, and Families Anonymous, which runs nationwide meetings for those dealing with a loved one's drug misuse.
This is out of your hands to carry alone.

He doesn’t sound very motivated nor savvy, so I don’t think he’ll be trying to access his savings. I think you’ll have to leave him to it and hit rock bottom. Only then will he realise his life was actually better before. Then he can get another job. When he's talking about getting a flat/house you can signpost him to his savings.

So, because he smokes weed and hasn’t done very well academically, he’s turned out differently from the child you imagined. And because of that, you now feel he isn’t the child you saved for and doesn’t deserve access to his savings account. Am I understanding you correctly?

Sheesh, some people in MN are insufferable!
The OP doesn't want a child who has gone off the rails wasting thousands of pounds on drugs. She wants advice on how to get him back on said rails so he can use his money wisely, to live a nice life.
She's hardly washed her hands of him.

I would do everything I can to stop him getting the money.
I feel for you.

I would stall as much as you can. Keep hold of the passport

encourage him to move back in

try and persuade him to use the money towards starting a career. Training course?

Not quite. That money was saved for his future. to help him on the property ladder or to make a good start in life. That money will always be his. It was never for him to waste on drugs or extortionate rent that will last him a few months and then what?

If he had a job and could afford to pay at least towards mortgage payments we would happily help him to buy a small place. That was the plan. But he doesn’t want to buy he says he doesn’t want to be tied down. Which I get and that is perfectly legitimate. But we can’t willingly hand it over when we know with certainty he will waste it right now. We didn’t save our money for that. In hindsight we shouldn’t have out it in his name but when they are 2 months one you don’t think about that!

Awful advice on here to transfer someone else’s money to your own account. Appalling. Don’t withhold his passport either, I can’t see that ending well.

You don’t want him to touch it - and I appreciate why - but the time to have properly considered the possible ramifications of him spending that money in HIS bank account has long past. You’re too late in that respect.

Just to clarify- destroying the passport would be an offence. Transferring his money into your account could be construed as theft.
Some of the posters need to think about what they are suggesting. Unless you can get him assessed as not competent- and that's a very very high threshold- there's little you can do without his co-operation

Obviously you didn't realise he would turn out this way when he was 2 months old.

Legally the money is his, but does he know which bank it’s with and the account details? If not I’d just not hand the details over, he won’t have any way to access the money then. And it’s not like he’s likely to be able to afford legal advice to make you give it to him!

It's legally his but I would definitely keep quiet about it and stall as much as possible in your situation, otherwise I fear it will be spunked away in no time.

I think this thread should be pinned and ready by all the posters saving 10s of thousands for their DC and are insistent their DC would never be irresponsible. You just don't know. It takes a long time for some young people to grow up. I do hope your situation gets better.

But we can’t willingly hand it over when we know with certainty he will waste it right now. We didn’t save our money for that

You don’t get to have a choice, if he does ask to get HIS money. YOUR money is in your accounts.