Can a grandparent open a saving account for their grandchild child without parent knowing?

[Mummy2b2020]

Bit of a strange one but can a grandparent open a bank account for their grandchild without the parent knowing?

I'm guessing they would need a birth certificate? Would they need both parents permission too? Signatures etc?

My delightful controlling mother-in-law is adamant she wants to set up a savings account for our son and keeps hassling us for the birth certificate which I'm guessing is so she can go and set up a bank account!

I have already told her that if she wants to give money towards then she can give it to us and we'll put the money away for him yet still is persistent at chasing us for the birth certificate. I actually find it insulting that she clearly thinks we can't be trusted with the money and is determined to put it into a savings account that he can't touch till he's 18?!

So I wondered if anyone knows can you just set up a savings account for a grandchild without permission from their mother?

Any info would be great!

She wants to set up a savings account and give money to your child? THE MONSTER

Depends if she intends to actually give him it eventually.. My exh got investigated for fraud. Stashing cash in dc's accounts then keeping it..
She can apply for his bc herself.

I am not going to pass judgement on why you wouldn’t want someone to set up a savings account for their grandchildren but my parents set up premium bonds for our kids recently and we had to send in a certified copy of the birth certificate and sign stuff to confirm identity. They couldn’t do it just themselves.

Are you concerned she will Lord it over you /dc op? Behave dc or you won't get your money. Maybe try to interfere in your parenting choices dangling it as a carrot..

Having meddling grandparents who want to give lots of money is not always a good thing and there can be very good reasons why it isn't a healthy or safe thing for a child. In our case, I've asked grandparents to not save money for our dc and to not leave them an inheritance. If they want to gift any money, they can give it to us to put directly in the savings accounts we've already opened (even if frankly, I'd rather they didn't). This is because they are quite financially coercive and there is a history of child sexual abuse that involved financial grooming (not involving dh or I or either of our dc). We are NC, obviously, but that doesn't stop the attempts to throw money at our dc in order to be manipulative. These things aren't always okay. Op, if you don't want them involved or opening an account, just say no. That's perfectly okay and reasonable.

I think at the time it felt a bit sort of patronising? I had a savings account started and would have preferred the contributions to go onto one account.

It isn't patronising of a GP wants to save for 18 years for their dgc and then handover the account themselves as a gift, instead of a parent handing over and saying here is your account we set up for you and by the way gran put some in too.

Your dc get two accounts/gifts one from each person who did long term saving for them. Also if the numbers and interest are substantial (unlikely with current interest rates) they are best kept separate as deposits from GPs don't count towards informing HMRC on interest over £100/year in your childrens account.

I'm at the other end of this conundrum. Controlling parents in law opened an account for my daughter 18 years ago using her birth certificate. There was a family split and her father, (their son) is estranged from them. The money should be transferred to her adult account now as she comes of age, but they are silent on the subject.

I am about to attempt to speak to them about it, any tips?

Yes my in laws did this for my son using birth certificate (we were ok with it)but the bank never asked us to approve it etc. For our next child the bank had changed policy and only one account allowed so it wasn’t an option and they have to pay into the account we set up.

Those of you commenting such nasty things to this OP obviously don’t have mother in law issues.

I can totally relate to this and baby hasn’t even been born yet. MIL keeps massively overstepping and trying to control things. The bank account suggestion is just the latest in a string of things she’s tried that I’m not happy with.

There are lots of ways she can save for grandchild. If you don’t want her to set up a bank account then so be it. She can save in other ways. I personally don’t want to give my babies birth certificate to MIL. I also don’t want her to use this bank account/money as leverage in the future. She can be quite manipulative and while I appreciate the gesture, I struggle to see past the potential negatives to it.

It depends on the back story. Perhaps the OP thinks that the MIL will keep the certificate and refuse to return it.

Is there a big back story? On the face of it it’s hard to see an issue with a grandparent setting up a bank account for a child, but I’m assuming there is history here which changes things?

If I offered to open a bank account for a child and the parent refused and requested I send them the money instead that would make me suspicious...

She can open savings but she wouldn’t be able to use the birth certificate to take out loans or credit cards in your child’s name as they are too young. That is usually the big threat in identity theft.

We are at the other end, where we have been unable to see my nephew due to Covid (different ends of the country). We all sent money for my nephews birthday, along with Grandparents and other relatives. When my brother spoke to my nephew, he said he had received absolutely nothing, apparently not one card arrived from various areas of the country. My ex SIL has been problematic for years trying to block my brother having access. This was always a shock to us as we always had a good relationship previously until she left my brother for another man. She left with no warning (no opportunity for my brother to say goodbye) and it took a year to gain access again through the courts which also broke my brother financially. We would like to be able to open an account so we can all put in money he would normally have for birthdays, Christmas and Easter. That way money will not go “missing again”.

Unfortunately my ex SIL is very controlling and has always attempted to freeze us out. She even told me nephew he could not have a mobile phone until he is 18. There is no doubt in my mind this was decided to make it difficult for us to stay in contact with my nephew.

Ha. One of my war stories for my controlling MIL was where she tried to fill in a form for a savings account for DD in her name by claiming on the form she had parental responsibility for her! I went cold when I saw it. Looking back I should have lost my temper but at the time I just said politely that this was a matter of law and she couldn’t say it because it wasn’t true. They were furious, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. In the end they set up an account in their own names.

Yes, she can get her own certified copy from the general register office. I made the mistake of handing over our DS original birth certificate for this purpose. It got lost. I was absolutely furious. Yes, we had the certified copy as well with the info about parents on etc which we had paid for, but you can never again get the original basic birth certificate so DS 1 doesn’t have it. Yes, it’s petty I know as the certified copy is considered to be the birth certificate as well, but the loss of it by people who had badgered us for it drove me nuts.
They had the good sense not to ask for DS2 birth certificate and ordered their own copy.

Why wouldn't you want her to set up a savings account for your child? You can have more than one you know if you wanted to do one yourself. Plenty of grandparents do this, my parents included. Very strange of you to try and stop her from doing this.

It would be controlling if she were saving the money in her name.
It's in the childs name. Once it's there it's his.

I am an assistant bank manager and the trustee has to have parental responsibility. It's because of gdpr and who has the right to share the child's information.

If my mother in law wanted to do that I’d happily give her the birth certificate. Don’t you trust her?

OP, you're getting a lot of hate here but clearly these people haven't experienced manipulative grandparents. If the grandparents have a lot of money and the parents don't (not uncommon these days), the money can very easily be used to manipulate and control relationships.
It's ok to say no, OP.
Is your husband on the same page as you?

Sorry but you sound awful! A relative is saving money for your babies future and you are kicking off, how very Fucking weird.

My ex Mil did this without my knowledge. They need a copy of the birth certificate which she got without me knowing.
It was a sly move because she never intended giving the money to my child, she was using the account as a tax dodge! I knew nothing about it until my sil (her daughter) found out and confronted her as there was no savings account for her child and she was upset the grandchildren were being treated differently. Caused a big family fallout.
This in mind I'm in the minority of thinking you're right to be cautious.

Another vote for YABU. Both sets of grandparents have started bank accounts for my children. They presumably would like to gift it to them on their 18th birthday as a gift from them as opposed to money going into an account and the child not really knowing what is from whom. I think it's a lovely thing to do

My Dad made a small investment for each of his Grandchildren.

He dies when they were young and they don't really remember him, but they hold dear the money that they got at 18, knowing it came from him.
(Not a huge amount but enough to cover some traveling or their first car insurance). They have all chosen to hold that money separately and know it came from him. No pressure from me - it came with no strings and it was entirely up to them what they did with it.
It is quite different from if he had put some money into the savings account we opened for each of them.