Cashing in disabled childs premium bonds

[allwornout0]

Not sure if anyone can help with this.
My dd is 17 years old and suffers from low functioning Autism, she was given some premium bonds for a birthday present when she was born.
We would like to cash the bonds in for her so that she can spend the money on a few things that she enjoys and to make her life a bit better for her. Unfortunately we have just seen that after she turned 16 (we thought it was 18) we no longer able to have control over her bonds. She will need to sign a form and be witnessed in doing so, whilst she can read and write a bit she is unable to do an actual signature.
Has anyone had a similar problem? really don't want her money to be unobtainable to her.

You can cash them in online as long as you are registered as an online user

Thanks MrsWOLF1, unfortunately when I called them today they said I was unable to do it online.
They said I had to download and fill in a form and get her to sign it, the form had to be witnessed by an independent person, and then said my dd had to write a covering letter saying that the bonds were given to her as a baby.
Not easy when you have a 17 year old with a mental age of a 4 year old.

That's not really low functioning, is it?

I would get the form and complete it and get her to make her 'mark' and also type out a letter with her name at the bottom and get her to do the same? If this isn't sufficient do you have any letters stating that you have control over her decisions and her affairs?

Palebluesky. It is low functioning. The opposite would be high functioning where the young person is very able. OPs DD is clearly not very able and is therefore low functioning.

Apologies, you are quite right. I misunderstood and thought the OP was being heroic :)

I might try that, thanks blueskyinmarch
I have to wait until she is 18 before I can apply to the court of protection to have control over her money, but when that will cost around £2000 and her premium bonds are only a couple of hundred pounds, I really want to try and avoid having to go down that route if I can.
Of course her numbers could come up and win a million.

If she only had a few hundred pounds worth I would hang on to them. You never know what they might yield.

Just fake it. Honestly for all the hassle, no one will give a monkeys at NS and I.

My DH is edging towards that IIhj.

I just wish i'd been a bit more on the ball with regards to checking things (ideally when she was 15)