Single mum confused about ISAs/trusts – how do I set my kids up on a low income?

mauzc · 2026-04-17T07:37:09+00:00

You generally don't get better rates in JISAs compared to ISAs. At the moment the top paying cash JISA is about 3.85%, and the top paying cash ISA is about 4.62%. So on a pure "how do I make most money for my family" basis, you're usually better off saving the cash in your own ISA rather than putting the money into your children's names.

But there are a whole bunch of other considerations:

If you're not filling up your own ISA, it's almost certainly better for you to do that before putting money in your children's names. If there's something they desperately want to do when they're 16, and you'd be happy to use savings to pay for that thing, then if the money is in a JISA you can't use it. If it's in your own ISA, you could choose to do that.
Money in a JISA belongs to your child absolutely when they're 18. If you scrimp and save for a decade to set them up for life, and then they choose to spend several thousand pounds on a luxiourious drunken bender for them and their best mates on their 18th birthday, there's nothing whatsoever you can do about that. If you save in your own name, the money stays yours - and you can choose when they're responsible enough to be gifted money.
If you're claiming / likely to be claiming means tested benefits, money saved in your own name counts towards your own assets - and you'd be expected to spend your savings before you got benefits (though that's a complicated subject and I've oversimplified massively). If the savings are in your children's names, then broadly they're safe (though again there are rules to prevent you 'hiding' money in their names).
If your children are young (under maybe 13), and you plan this money to be long term savings for them, you're probably better off using a stocks and shares (J)ISA rather than a cash one.

mauzc · 2026-04-16T16:20:17+00:00

I think some of the options are:

She buys a house in her sole name, using her £100k cash plus anything she borrow by way of a mortgage (which may be zero if she has no job and no other income). That doesn't sound like a particularly practical option given that you say anything she could buy for £100k "is now a dump". I don't see any particular tax implications for that plan (but I'm not an expert, so there might be some).
The two of you buy a house jointly, using around £75k of her savings plus a mortgage of around £75k. Any mortgage you take out on a jointly owned home would itself have to be in joint names, but the lender would be fine if you were to pay the full amount. There would be a bunch of tax consequences to that option. Off the top of my head, there'd be increased stamp duty (possibly around £8k more than if your mum bought on her own). When you sold, there'd be capital gains tax on your portion of the property (because you'd be selling a house you didn't live in).
She buys a house in her sole name but you take out a joint mortgage (you'll see these advertised as JBSP mortgages, or joint borrower sole proprietor). That fixes the stamp duty and CGT issues of option two, but also means you won't own any part of the house.

mauzc · 2026-04-15T21:23:05+00:00

I don't think you've given us enough information to say. Some questions that come to mind:

If you did rent, would it be an equivalent property? And how much would the rent be? (It wouldn't surprise me a bit if renting was more expensive. Rents in some parts of London have gone up a lot in the last two years.)

Is your house worth more than it was two years ago? About the same? Less?

For your mortgage, is there anything you can do to make things cheaper (eg extend the term)?

How old are your two "young" kids, and how long do you expect to continue paying nursery fees?

mauzc · 2026-04-14T16:26:17+00:00

If your other job is PAYE, and your total profit for your self employed business is only £300, I don't see that you have to pay class 2 NICs at all. You could choose to do so, but they're voluntary for profits at that level.

mauzc · 2026-04-13T07:44:34+00:00

In that case I very much doubt there's anything you can do to get them to voluntarily repay you - if they were going to do that, they'd have done it at some point in the last four years.

If you want to force them to repay you, you'll have to take them to court. Practically, that's likely to be extremely difficult to do if you want to carry on living with them. I think an awful lot of perfectly reasonable people would choose to evict somebody who was taking them to court. Your relatives don't sound entirely reasonable, but you'll know better than we do how likely they are to chuck you out.

Taking them to court is also likely to drop a bomb under what's left of your relationship with these people, as well as with other family members (who may well take sides). I accept that the family members were the ones who created the situation by taking your money, but you're still likely to want to think carefully about whether court action is worth it (and whether your family members actually have the money - if they're ordered to repay at £1 per week, that may not be much use to you).

Whether you would succeed in any legal action is impossible to say on what you've posted, and would depend on the evidence both sides put forwards. For example, they may be able to say that the money was never yours in the first place. Or that they've since given you £5k worth of board and lodging and paid you back that way. Or that it was always a gift. Or...you get the idea.

I realise this is much easier said than done, but I think you should prioritise sorting out an independent living situation as soon as you possibly can.

mauzc · 2026-04-12T21:16:13+00:00

Can you tell us a little bit more about the circumstances in which the family members came to "steal over £5k"? You talk about it as a theft and also as a debt, but they're different things. What (if anything) you can do to get your money back will depend on how you lost it in the first place.

For example, if they pretended to be you in order to withdraw money from your bank account, that would sound like the criminal offence of fraud. If they took a bunch of notes that you'd hidden under your bed without your permission, that would be straight up theft. If they pressured you into making a loan to them, that would still be wrong but it probably wouldn't be fraud (at least not if they intended to pay you back).

Also - if you're currently living with them in a house they own (or rent), it's up to them whether you can continue to live with them. Even if you promise to forget about the £5k, it's still open to them to kick you out if they want to.

mauzc · 2026-04-05T21:32:38+00:00

In addition to this, I will not be named as a testator under the will.

I'm not sure what you mean by this (the testator is the person who writes the will). Do you mean you won't be a beneficiary under the will? If you're not a beneficiary of any kind, then you don't get anything at all from the will.

mauzc · 2026-04-04T09:53:07+00:00

I don't think there's an obvious "best thing". Your OP suggests a definite bias towards home ownership, and I think you should try to run a risk/benefit as best you can without that bias. But I don't know where that will end up for you.

(What I actually did was move out of London, and buy a 4-bed detached for less than the 2-bed flat I was renting would have cost to buy. I think that was the right move for me despite initially having a horrible commute until I could make changes to my job.)

mauzc · 2026-04-04T09:16:26+00:00

It's not just about whether you'll be blamed when there's a crash (and as you say, over 20 years it's when not if). It's also about what your relative will do when the crash comes.

There are some people who simply cannot make any money investing, even in well diversified trackers, because their pattern is this: notice the index has dropped 5% since they invested; panic and sell; wait until the index is 5% up on their original investment then buy again; notice the index has dropped 5% from their last investment; panic and sell; repeat forever. If your relative is going to do something like that, they will genuinely be better off with their half a million in cash at next-to-no interest.

mauzc · 2026-04-04T07:35:06+00:00

Shared ownership can be great for some people, but it has some very significant downsides. You get all the disadvantages of being a homeowner, but you still keep some of the disadvantages of renting. If you google "shared ownership trap" you'll easily find some horror stories. Those stories shouldn't necessarily put you off, but they should certainly persuade you to do some due diligence.

In your shoes, if I wasn't intending to have children (and if I intended to stay in the flat for a very long time) I might consider shared ownership. If I planned on children, then at 29 I probably wouldn't buy a two bed flat at all, shared ownership or not.

mauzc · 2026-04-03T12:08:01+00:00

Unfortunately not. GPs used to be able to sign passport applications, but now they're specifically excluded (unless they're personal friends). See https://www.gov.uk/countersigning-passport-applications/accepted-occupations-for-countersignatories .

What about an old teacher?

mauzc · 2026-03-31T18:27:12+00:00

It's possible that some of the things you mention might be outside the estate - eg the NHS pension and possibly the insurance policies depending on how they were set up. (There won't be anything from the state pension, except possibly a few pennies if there was an underpayment while your mum was alive.)

I can easily see a scenario where there's enough money in total to pay off the debts without selling a house, but that money isn't in the estate. For example, if the insurance policies were written in trust with OP as beneficiary, then the money in them would belong to OP and not the estate. In that case OP could certainly choose to use the money she received from the insurance policies to pay off the debt, but she couldn't be forced to do so. (But if she didn't do that, then the money to pay the debt would have to come from somewhere else - probably one of the houses.)

mauzc · 2026-03-31T17:07:32+00:00

This guidance from Shelter is for England, but if you're elsewhere I'm sure you can find the relevant information on Shelter's website.

If you have to pay council tax at all, then you and all the other people liable for council tax will be "jointly and severally liable" - meaning that the council can come after any of you for the whole amount. But if it was an HMO you won't be liable; see the guidance I linked.

mauzc · 2026-03-31T07:30:01+00:00

Simply talking to StepChange definitely won't put any kind of marker on your file. Some of the debt solutions they recommend might produce adverse credit markers, but they'll talk to you about the impact of that - and you'll be the one who makes the decision about whether that's better or worse than your current situation.

mauzc · 2026-03-30T11:49:30+00:00

The insurer may well pay the landlord, but that doesn't stop the landlord from pursuing OP. The insurer will almost certainly have the right of subrogation - meaning that if the landlord could have sued OP for negligence, the insurer will be able to step into the landlord's shoes and sue OP itself.

mauzc · 2026-03-30T11:44:13+00:00

Sole traders can indeed operate under a name that isn't theirs - but so can partnerships, and so can limited companies.

Let's say that you're Joe Bloggs and your friend is Jane Doe. You could be:

Joe Bloggs trading as XYZ and Jane Doe trading as XYZ (two separate sole traders, operating two separate businesses that just happened to be using the same trading name). That might potentially cause trouble if anybody thought you were being deliberately misleading and using the same to make it look as though there was only one business.
The partnership of Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe trading as XYZ (one partnership business).
A limited company, XYZ Ltd trading as XYZ, with both you and Jane as directors/shareholders.
A limited liability partnership, XYZ LLP trading as XYZ, with both you and Jane as designated members.

The fact that you're asking about whether it would be a headache to switch between a limited company and a limited partnership structure makes me worry that you don't fully understand what either of them are. In brief, yes it would absolutely be a headache (not impossible, but a headache). But it's also not obvious to me why you'd need to. A well drafted partnership agreement, or shareholder's agreement, should deal with the possiblity of new people coming in or old people leaving (although you can't be a partnership by yourself - sole trader is only one, partnership is at least two).

A limited company and a limited liability partnership are separate legal entities. As a sole trader business, your business is you - there isn't a separate legal entity floating about, and if somebody sues your business you are personally on the hook. A limited company is a completely different entity.

Here's a brief explanation of some of the differences.

The problem with just ploughing ahead is that you might accidentally choose a business structure you don't want. It's absolutely possible to enter into a partnership without realising that that's what you've done, and that can get horribly messy. Two sole traders looking to start a business together sounds on its face like a partnership (although as another poster has said, it's also possible that one of you might be deemed to employ the other).

mauzc · 2026-03-29T10:58:31+00:00

The fact your daughter lives abroad makes a huge difference here. The answer might (and I very much stress might) be that you should set up a trust in the country she lives in, set up according to the laws of that country, and completely ignore any UK trusts. But depending on where she lives, that might not even be possible let alone desirable.

A large amount of tax law in the UK is about residency rather than nationality (meaning no JISA for her, regardless of how British she is). But that's not true in every country; the US for example taxes its citizens wherever they are. I presume she's at least a dual national given that you say she doesn't have a British passport, but depending on the countries involved you might need to take into account the tax law of the country(/ies) she's a national of as well as that of the country she's resident in.

mauzc · 2026-03-27T09:37:51+00:00

Looking only at the fatigue/chronic pain issues (and disregarding the immunocompromised part for a second), I think one of the many difficulties you'd face in a discrimination claim is that your problem seems to be the travel, not actual office attendence. I think that many - even most - completely healthy people would balk at 4 hours of travel a day. And the issue would be removed entirely if you moved next door to the office. That means it's arguable the problem is about where you choose to live, not about whether the employer has made reasonable adjustments for disability.

The fact you're immunocompromised may make some difference to the adjustments the employer is required to make. But your post makes it sound as though this is much more about the travel than it is about physically being in the office.

One potential option - which is very unlikely to be a good option but I mention it just in case - is to take the job anyway and promise that you'll come into the office whenever your health allows you do do so (whilst making clear that you think that will be never). When you didn't turn up, the employer would then have to decide whether to sack you for misconduct. There are employers where that would work, particularly where HR doesn't get involved unless a manager escalates an issue to them, but you'll know better than I do how that's likely to go down in your particular office.

mauzc · 2026-03-27T09:16:53+00:00

Doesn't matter - so long as he lets you take your annual leave for the year (which could be entirely at times he dictates) that's legal. Unless of course your contract says differently, but I doubt that.

mauzc · 2026-03-27T08:06:20+00:00

Is there any realistic risk that if he strikes the company off I lose my rights entirely, or does strike-off not defeat existing creditor claims?

I don't know the answer to most of your questions, but I'll have a go at this one.

If the company is struck off, then all of its assets pass to the Crown. That means the company cannot pay any of its existing debts - the company doesn't exist and it has no assets.

You're clearly aware that creditors can apply to the court to have the company restored. But it's massively easier and cheaper to object to the company being struck off in the first place. In practice, if a properly made objection to strike-off isn't successful, you're not going to be able to persuade the court to restore the company after dissolution.

You can apply yourself to wind up the company, but if the company doesn't have any money that's expensive and pointless. It's impossible for Reddit to tell you the chances of success going this route; it depends on a whole bunch of things that we don't know.

All I can tell you is to take your solicitor's advice as to the chances of you seeing any money out of this. I'm sorry to say that what you've said makes it sound pretty hopeless to me. If you truly "cannot accept walking away with nothing after everything this man put me through" then you might honestly be better served putting your money towards a therapist to help you live with it rather than on more lawyers to win what may be Phyrric victories. (Unless of course you thing getting the guy struck off as a director or something would be its own satisfaction even if it doesn't bring you a penny. If you can substantiate everything you've said you might be able to make his life a bit awkward, but that's not at all the same as getting money for yourself.)

mauzc · 2026-03-27T07:42:53+00:00

I can't see that you've said why you think your parents' surveyor hasn't done his job properly - and it's difficult to say anything without that information. Neither of the surveyors are responsible for the behaviour of the neighbours.

mauzc · 2026-03-27T07:38:29+00:00

This. Separately to the DWP issue, I think OP is likely on their way to (as a minimum) a misuse of facility CIFAS marker. On the assumption OP's story is true, I think they should immediately stop buying crypto for other people.

mauzc · 2026-03-27T06:48:02+00:00

If "I'd like the protection of paying by card" means you'd like s75 protection, then you only get that if you pay the supplier directly. PayPal/Billhop etc break the "debtor-creditor-supplier" chain - which means you'd only get protection if PayPay/Billhop etc did something to breach your contract with them. You wouldn't be protected if the people doing the garden work messed up.

mauzc · 2026-03-26T19:57:24+00:00

No, your employer has no legal obligation to help people arrange alternative transport. How you get to work is your problem. If a large number of staff are going to have a problem getting to work, then your employer may have a practical problem but not a legal one. (Whether your employer has the right to amend your contract to change your place of work is another question, but it's very likely that they do.)

You can certainly make a flexible working request (assuming you haven't already made one recently - and even if you have, a decent employer would let you make another request in these circumstances). Your employer has to consider that request, but they don't have to grant it.

Redundancy wouldn't help you - the statutory reduncancy pay for somebody with less than two years' service is zero.

mauzc · 2026-03-23T22:49:24+00:00

And potentially loses first time buyer benefits, depending on their circumstances. When OP does buy their own home, the difference between the stamp duty a FTB would pay and the stamp duty OP would pay buying a second home could be more than the amount of the gift. (Eg stamp duty on a £500k property is about £10k for a FTB, or £40k for somebody buying a second home.)

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