Can you do anything with a minor child's money?

A minor can end up with significant assets through donations from their parents, but also from their grandparents or even their great-grandparents. These sums are managed by their parents (the legal administrators). However, it is quite common for parents to help themselves to the accounts and other savings accounts of their minor children, as if this money were their own. This is a mistake. According to the law, the sums deposited into the account opened in the name of a minor, regardless of their origin (pocket money, New Year's gifts, birthdays, donations, etc.), belong to them permanently.

Even if, as legal administrators, they have access to the child's accounts until the child reaches the age of majority, "the parents cannot use all or part of the child's funds, even to pay for a vacation or buy a car for the family," points out Justine Gentile, a lawyer at the firm Cornet, Vincent, Ségurel. A June 2 ruling by the Court of Cassation has supplemented legislation already extensive on the subject.

The case was as follows: a divorced father withdrew €15,000, without warning his ex-wife, from the savings accounts of his three minor children and transferred them to the account of his struggling business. Carried out without the mother's knowledge, this transaction was even validated by Crédit Mutuel, the bank holding the children's accounts. Faced with this siphoning of the savings accounts, the latter sued the bank for lack of vigilance. The latter was ordered to repay the sums for failing to obtain the consent of the second parent.

This ruling is, for the first time, against account holders. "In the future, banks will have to be particularly vigilant and obtain the agreement of both parents before any such transaction on a minor's accounts," comments Justine Gentile. Surprisingly, for years "banking establishments have allowed this to happen and have been rather lax about possible withdrawals of money at the initiative of parents." notes Guillaume Berthiaux, president of Sofidy Gestion privée.

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