bare trust- holding unit trusts for children
Postby uncle john » Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:07 pm
Hello
I'd like to buy for a young child some unit trusts; because it'll be 15 years or so before he's 18, and costs do compound over such a period, I'm looking for a low-cost 'platform' on which to hold them.
In one or two platforms, one can hold units in an adult's name, with the child's initials added, to signify that the units don't belong to the adult but are held under a bare trust. (Alternatively, the units could be held in a JISA, but in this case, I don't want to use a JISA.) However, those particular platforms are relatively expensive, charging 0.5% pa of the value. I know that the largest platform doesn't charge platform fees for shares, only for unit trusts, but i specifically want to hold unit trusts.
There are much cheaper platforms out there with charges down to around 0.2%, but so far as I can see, they seem to only accept adults and one can't designate the units via the child's initials to denote a bare trust.
My question - in practice, were one to open an account in one's own name at such a lower-cost firm, without any designation, would HMRC accept that the units weren't beneficially owned by the adult - but rather by the child - if for example, one could demonstrate that the funds to buy them had come from the child's own bank account, and not from the adult? Or is there some other way?
Alternatively, does anyone know of any low-cost platform that does accept bare trusts?
Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated.
thanks.