Foresters Financial CTF

[SixSeven]

I’ve got an appointment with FF next week to discuss my daughter’s CTF as she approaches 18. Has anyone had one of these appointments, I’m not really sure what to expect.

Obviously the CTFs are invested in stocks and shares (which I know very little about by the way). We’ve paid in £50 a month since birth and upped it to £100 about a year ago. So about £11,400 we’ve put in over 18 years and now getting nearly £30k out. It’s performed extremely well and I wouldn’t have a problem in continuing to invest with them on that basis.

I felt exactly the same op I quite like that dd has a little pot of money still with them that’s there but not as easily accessible as her main accounts. In my mind that’s the start of a flat/house deposit.

We're on to Child number 4 out of 5 who's CTF is with Foresters. It matures in January and value currently is £12600.We've already had the email from the Financial Adviser ( same one as last 3 times) stating how CTF is maturing and we can make an appointment to discuss what to do with the funds. To be honest we already know what he'll recommend. There's not that many options ( which I think is a good thing at this age). Options are Cash Isa, Stocks & shares Isa, LISA and withdraw money. We're thinking of opening a LISA, withdraw £1k for driving lessons and putting rest in a Stocks & Shares ISA.

We turned down the offer, and DS withdrew the money as we'd always planned (not to spend all of it, to invest/save in other ways). The appointment is designed to get the child to further invest with them.

It all has to be your daughter's choice, as it's her money the minute she turns 18.

We had no issue during the or with DS getting his money promptly. We refused the interview/meeting though, each time they suggested it.

@SixSeven If I’d listened to the advisors at Forresters, i’d have withdrawn the CTF about 5 years before maturity and placed it into one of their JISA’s. It would’ve meant the final value would’ve been a lot less. Then I had an appointment like yours before maturity with a young chap who frankly didn’t know his arse from his elbow. He was only interested in getting me to leave the money with them and seemed to resort to desperate arguments at one point. It was not great. DD withdrew the money and put it into the highest paying interest account recommended by MSE whilst she decided what to do with it (the money was intended to pay for Uni tuition fees which she does use it for). It was a good lesson for her in money management. Be warned though, The withdrawal process was also torturous- inexplicable delays to DD receiving her money during which we were incorrectly advised about the value final amount and subsequently received compensation from them about that. I would not be an advocate of them but I might just’ve been unlucky in every person I spoke to there!

Remember the limit on a property value on a LISA is £450k - so check that is practical for the area in which she might buy one. In addition, it must be your first home and you can only withdraw the money from it without a penalty for the purposes of buying a property unless you are over 60, or if you receive a terminal diagnosis from an illness which means you have less than 12 months to live. The penalty for withdrawal without buying a property (not withstanding being over 60 or seriously ill) does mean you are likely to take out less than you have put into it if you have to do that.

I’ve had this with both dd and ds.
The advice is free and was good advice.
Both of their ctf’s performed very well. Dd chose to open a LISA, to draw some out to help with uni costs, and to reinvest some (which has instant access if she needs it, it can take up to two days but she’s drawn out twice and both have been in her bank account same day).
Ds took some out to buy a car, opened a LISA and reinvested some.

Both dc chose to reinvest with foresters and I was happy with them doing this as their child trust fund had done so well. There was no hard sell from the advisor, he just talked through the options and told them what they offered.

I’ve actually opened the equivalent isas for my younger children too, this was done completely off my own bat after seeing how well the ctf’s had done. At ds’ meeting he said he could see that I’d opened them and gave me some projections for if I wanted to try to make it equal but again there was zero pressure.

Hargreaves Lansdown on the other hand offered zero condolences when we contacted them to tell them of my mum’s death and went straight in with the hard sell. This was after it took us a ridiculous amount of time to be able to speak to an human. It’s also been a complete nightmare a) to get accurate figures for probate and b) to access the money, we’ve jumped through the same hoop at least six times and got nowhere 😡

We took the offer up. The chap spent ages explaining different options, cash, Lifetime isa, stocks and shares. DS now has a good sum for a house deposit in a lifetime isa and rest in a stock and shares isa which has performed well so far. The chap emails him each year about adding more to the Lisa., so he should get £4000 added by Government by the end of Uni. Made it clear that other companies do similar. It was good for my DS as he listened to him more than he would to us.