Father refusing adult son access to his own money

[SurfingSandy]

I'm posting on behalf of my friend whose ex is refusing to give their son access to his child savings account money even though the son is now 20. The account was opened and operated by the ex but they both contributed to it along with other family members. The account would have had to be transferred into the son's name at 18 so ex has presumably been impersonating son to bank since then. When tackled about it ex becomes very defensive and says son is not responsible enough to handle the money (which is a joke as ex is hopeless in that department whereas son is actually very sensible). So far there's no suggestion ex has stolen or plans to steal the money but apparently is just 'keeping it safe' for son. Nevertheless it seems to me this is clearly criminal behaviour. My friend is very angry and upset about it but does not want to do anything that might blow up fragile family relationships and make life worse for her son, who is close to his dad. Has anyone been in a similar position or have any ideas how to resolve things?

Was it a child's saver account or child isa? Why can't the now adult child go into the bank? That's the easiest way to sort it

Lots of red flags for me, my DH has one of these for his daughter on the day she turns 18 my husband has to hand off the account from what he has explained to me so I would be going into the bank with ID with her son and asking them. Something isn’t right OP.

if the account is still in the son's name, he can access it directly, without any input from his dad.

I'd be assuming the worst, unless I had proof otherwise.

I'd think the money was long gone.

The son needs to go into the bank and gain access to his account and hope there has been no fraud committed.

A meeting with the bank is required to get to the bottom of it. Does your friend have any proof of the account details?

He needs to contact the bank. Is it a trustee account? With ex as trustee?

Thank you everyone. As far as I understand it, the ex is refusing to share the account number, PIN etc with the son. Going to the bank would I guess expose the ex as having been operating the account illegally, which I think my friend is hoping to avoid. I suppose maybe when things calm down a bit she could perhaps use this as leverage with the ex - just hand over the access information to son and there will be no need to approach the bank.

He's spent it. I'd bet all I have on it.

A junior ISA can’t be accessed by anyone else other than the child with ID, so I’d be inclined to believe that the ex doesn’t want to give the access now. I have Junior ISA and it’s absolutely not able to be withdrawn from me

Actually she must at least know the account number as she did contribute to it I believe.

My friend’s husband ‘borrowed’ money from his children and could never repay it. This led to them having tax problems. It destroyed their relationship.

I think he has taken the money too. The bank will have had the son’s date of birth when opening the account as you need to supply a birth certificate, so when he turned 18 it would have converted to an adult bank account and the bank would have written to the son. So I think the dad has withdrawn the money and closed the account.

I have an account for my son and I can make 1-2 withdrawals a year on his behalf if I want to so it’s more than possible.

You dont need to account number if you know which bank it is with. If you don’t then it’s not that laborious to go round the most popular banks

I think that your friend could go into the bank with child and ID and share that ‘dad has got himself into a muddle and forgotten to pass details to son’. Silly dad - no animosity.

Like pp I expect that the money is long gone so I think that you definitely need son with you to do this so that he can decision make on what to do rather than his mum getting involved.

If it is a Child Trust Fund that the government initially paid 250/500 into depending on age then you can find it online. I didn’t know who my daughters was with as they closed it and moved it elsewhere. Son can then contact them and say he wants it paid out and dad won’t even know - they won’t contact a parent of an over 18. The money must be there as you can’t withdraw at all til 18, if dad has then report him for fraud. If it’s just a savings account I don’t know……

As long as your friend knows the name of the bank, it should be possible for the bank to access it with the son's date of birth and proof of ID. Better still if he had a birth certificate with his father's name on.

I wouldn't hesitate to do that. There's no reason not to. It's the son's account, the son's money.
If the ex has been operating the account illegally, then that's on him. There's no reason to try to protect him, surely?

You don’t need to traipse round banks, the son can just get a credit report from somewhere like Clearscore, for free, the bank account should show on there. Also, if the dad has taken out an overdraft etc.

I wouldn’t let this lie and hope for the best. Get it sorted now, it’s not worth risking damage to credit rating etc by allowing someone else to control your account.

I bet my life on it, that money is gone.

Me too. I think he's spent it....or at least dipped into it. His behaviour is pretty extreme

Same, honestly.

I think it's gone too.

I think your friend needs to bite the bullet and stop prevaricating and get down the bank

Sorry haven't rtft but I would be telling him hi has until the end of the day to pass everything over to your son or else you'll be reporting him to the police for fraud and abuse this is controlling and illegal