Trustee has cleared account

[withholdcontact]

Hi I was wondering if anyone could help, my ex husband and I are joint trustees on a Halifax save4it account set up for our daughter when she was born in 2008. The account had nearly £10,000 in it. Yesterday by chance we learned that over the space of a year her father has transferred nearly all of the money to himself. Would this be considered fraud? He has not been spending the money on our daughter.

I don't see that legally he has done anything wrong.
And, if challenged, I assume he could just claim he had spent the money on your daugher?

Check if you have legal cover included with your home insurance, to access free legal advice. A colleague recently did this and it covered him to pursue a civil matter.

Just to add, even if both parents names are on the save4it account, only one needs to sign to make a withdrawal.

He’s not legally done anything wrong, morally, yes, but he had access to the account and if it’s a save4it only one parent needs to sign to withdraw.

It may well be a trust. Quite a few children’s savers accounts are set up as a bare trust. As a trustee he will have to account for how he has used the funds and give receipts.
It is going to depend on the wording of the account docs.
There are two distinct obligations here:

1. obligation of the bank - the bank’s duty is to act in accordance with the mandate which they probably have done; and
2. the obligation of the trustee to use the money for the benefit of the beneficiary. If he has taken the money and it was a bare trust then he will have to prove he used it for your DD’s benefit

She said it’s a Halifax save4it. The info about it is online but basically either parent can have access to it. It’s essentially a child’s saving account that a parent has access to. Most parents do use it to give to their child when they reach a certain age however there’s no trust rules about who and what it’s spent on etc.

i do think it would be helpful though if OP gave a bit more detail on the exact account.

If he is a trustee which he may well be then he possibly has. Trustees are held to a much higher standard so he would have to prove that he acted to benefit the beneficiary.

Surely it is obvious he's done it without @withholdcontact 's approval?!

Save4it is no longer offered but the Halifax Kid’s Saver is a trust account so Save4it may well be.

That’s right, it got renamed to “saver reward” in 2009 and then changed yet again to Kids saver.

Why do you have to be spiteful?

Not much you can do legally as you set it up as either could sign. I had one with my exh and had set it up as both must sign. He'd forged my signature and I got refunded by bank. Their fraud team investigated it. I'd publicly shamed him. Let all his family and friends know what he has done. If he's enjoyed his employer too.

OP you can double check with Halifax but if the account has the same terms as the Kid’s saver then there is a good chance that it was a trust.
If it was a trust then the ability of a trustee to withdraw the money is subject to their duty as a trustee to use that money for the benefit of the beneficiary.

The ability to withdraw the money governs the relationship between the bank and the trustees. The duties owed by the trustee to the beneficiary is separate from the relationship with the bank.

I’ve attached a screenshot from the Halifax website about the current Kids Saver which refers to that account being a trust.

i always find this bizarre. Presumably you have a female name and you both have to sign in front of someone in person? How did he manage that?

OP I am concerned that you are getting quite a bit of conflicting commentary not all of which is accurate. People are mixing up the duty of the bank and his potential duty as a trustee (if it was a trust account).

I am a financial services lawyer and I think you need to look into this further (obviously I can’t give you legal advice).

My suggestion would be to initially go back to Halifax and confirm if it was a trust account.
If it was then you can explore getting legal advice on what action you can take against him.
If it wasn’t a trust account you would need to take advice on whether or not you can still show he has effectively deprived your DD of her property.

One other thing to explore is was the account due to revert to your DD at 16? Did that happen? Did your ex remove any money after that point? If that happened then Halifax might be on shaky ground for any amounts removed after your DD should have been in control. Again you would need legal advice based on the facts.

No, her daughter has lost her money because her father has stolen it. The OP is not to blame, he is

The T’s and Cs of trust account are actually very cleverly worded. It says the person withdrawing “may” be asked there and then what the money is being used for re the child. But they don’t legally have to ask.

It’s really not as simple as that.

Having RTFT I see that the dad of the daughter is prone to financial abuse.

OP your daughter is an adult, if it was me and she knows about this account, I would be telling her outright what has happened before she finds out for herself.

I would also be wanting her to ask her father why he took it but I know that’s probably not a popular thing to say.

But truthfully I wouldn’t expect to see a penny of the money again. Take his name off any further accounts he has access to.

The bank has no obligation to enforce the trustee’s duties, the bank’s only legal duty is to act in accordance with the mandate. There may be an argument that they should have been more vigilant under the vulnerable customer guidance but the ex may have lied anyway.

Even if he withdrew the money in accordance with the account mandate that just absolves the bank. It doesn’t in any way discharge any duties he may have had to the beneficiary if he was a trustee.

had a similar account my parents put money into that i planned to use towards further education/my own place, and if my dad took it I’d want to know immediately so i could come to terms with my plans possibly changing.

They would get nowhere in court. The father had legal access to the savings account and Halifax can’t enforce what it’s spent on.

If they wanted an account that couldn’t be accessed by anyone until child turns 16 then they should’ve picked an ISA.

I have recently emptied my childs savings account of a similar amount but all for good reason.

Legally I don't believe there is anything you can do as the bank did nothing wrong by paying out to a signatory.

Morally he is scum