My ex husband is withholding my sons child trust fund login in details now he's turned 18.

[whamette]

I have no contact with my ex due to the acrimonious split 5 years ago. My son turned 18, 6 weeks ago and up until 6 months ago had contact with his dad. My son now has no contact and has moved in with me full time. When we split, my ex changed the passwords on the CTF and changed addresses for correspondence. I contacted HMRC and they can't trace the CTF. Their helpline is useless you can't get through. My ex loves moving money about and I have no idea where he will be holding these funds. What he's doing is wrong and knowing him, this is a tool for bribing my son back in contact with him (which my son won't btw) Has any one else had this experience and what's everyone takes on this? I have emailed ex to provide the details to my son but as always, no response. Going the legal route its just ridiculous but I will if I have to. I just feel that this must happen alot and there doesn't seems to be a robust way to make sure that our children get their CTF's on time and in good faith from their parents. Give me some useful views everyone. Thanks

He texts his dad saying you’ve had a fight, can he come back, he hates you and wants his ISA to go on a trip alone because he needs it after.
He’ll have his money in a week, and the trip can be back to your house. :)
Would be quickest I think. But your son needs to be contacting police/ HMRC himself as he is an adult if going down that route.

My son turned 18 last year and we got a letter from HSBC saying funds would be held in an ISA until he contacts them asking to be paid into a bank account in his name. No one else can access the money.

Sounds like he might be in breach of a court order.

I’m guessing he wouldn’t have to go in branch with a photo ID & proof of address etc for this?
Having read OPs again, I think it’s possible the father might have committed fraud. Might be easy to do if it’s just a case of a phone call / sending in a copy of ID which he might have been able to get hold of etc.

He had to send an electronic copy of his passport and driving license to open the account for money to be transferred to.

Im sure he then had to go into the local branch with ID but I can’t remember why that was .

It's not easy to open a bank account in first place without a couple of forms of photo ID

My DC had to send certified copies of ID and proof of address (passport, driving licence) together with a form requesting JISA closure and transfer for the funds to be released to their bank account.

It depends how he had it certified. Certification just means they're certifying it's a true copy of the document they're presented with

Have you been to the provider it was initially opened with? Trust funds are really difficult to move so it may still be there. If not they will be able to see where I was sent to

Just presented the originals and photocopies at the Post Office to get the copies certified for a small fee (so easy to do).

It was more that DC didn’t need to go to the bank in person to get money paid into an existing bank account.

So it’s straightforward for DC to get the money transferred from the CTF into an existing bank account once it’s been tracked down.

(And not that OP’s exH would be able to get his hands on it).

Wrong. You could roll it into a children’s isa with a completely different organisation - I did this.

Forgot to quote the earlier post - that was in response to a pp saying it couldn’t be moved anywhere. Yes it can.

Bit off but could your son just be friendly with his dad for long enough to get his money? If there's no way of you finding it? Or police as it's theft?

OP, ask your son to email your local MP about this, including his name, address, date of birth, and any details about the account. Probably his NI number too. He may wish to note the estrangement and that potential fraud may be involved. It will need to be him rather than you as he's 18. There is a special MP contact address at HMRC that their office can access to get this looked into quickly (regardless of political party so don't worry about that). It should elicit a quicker response than other routes.

I couldn't remember who my ds' was with. When he turned 18 he had to send an email to HMRC asking where it was and they gave him the information and he then requested the money from whoever it was with. I wasn't able to request the details once he'd turned 18

@whamette Have you looked at the Share Foundation? They offer a free service to help children find their CTF.

Try gretel. I wasn’t even looking for a ctf as I have the details but it still showed in the results.

for my lost account what do you mean it doesn’t “fit”? It is lost, your son doesn’t know where it is or how to access it. So fill it in and submit as you don’t know any details.