Who Controls a Child's Custodial CD at Age Eighteen

Attorney Answer

No, he is not correct — "executor" is not a role that exists for a living child's account, and a person holding money for a child holds it as a fiduciary, not as an owner who gets to decide how it is spent. What he can and cannot do depends on one fact you need to pin down first: whether this certificate of deposit is a formal custodial account or simply the Social Security dependent benefits he received as her representative payee.

Why the distinction decides everything. The Connecticut Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, General Statutes §§ 45a-557 through 45a-560b, governs custodial property held for a minor and establishes a fiduciary relationship between the custodian and the minor. If he opened a UTMA account, he is a custodian under that Act, the money is the child's, and he must turn it over at the age fixed by the Act and by the terms of the original transfer. Do not assume that age is eighteen — the turnover age is not always eighteen, and it should be confirmed for this specific account before her birthday.

If instead he was the representative payee for her Social Security dependent benefits and put them in a CD, then Social Security Administration rules govern how those funds are held and accounted for, not the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act. Either way, the money is hers. Neither role makes him the owner, and neither role gives him a veto over tuition.

What the courts say about a custodian who treats the money as his own. In Mangiante v. Niemiec, 82 Conn. App. 277 (2004), the Appellate Court confirmed that the Act establishes a fiduciary relationship between the custodian of a custodial account and the minor, and held that a custodian who spent custodial funds to satisfy the custodian's own obligation — there, the custodian's court-ordered child support payments — breached that fiduciary duty. The court also applied the rule that where a complaint against a fiduciary alleges self-dealing, the fiduciary carries the burden of proving fair dealing by clear and convincing evidence rather than by a fair preponderance. The judgment ran in the minor's favor.

On where to bring it: in Sender v. Sender, 56 Conn. App. 492 (2000), the court held that where a dispute over a minor's custodial account arises inside a dissolution action already pending in the Superior Court, that court may order the custodian to restore the accounts and may hold the custodian in contempt for failing to comply. But the court tied that reasoning to the pending dissolution, and acknowledged that the Probate Court would have been an appropriate forum had the dispute involved only the custodian and the child. So: if there is an open family case between you and her father, raise it there. If there is not, Probate Court is the natural forum.

What you can do — and most of this costs nothing

1. Have your daughter, in writing, ask her father for the name of the bank, the account number, how the account is titled, and a copy of the most recent statement. A custodian owes an accounting to the child. Keep a copy of the request. 2. Once she turns eighteen, have her go to banks in person with her Social Security card and photo identification and ask whether an account exists under her Social Security number. She can do this herself; you cannot do it for her. 3. Call the Social Security Administration and ask whether he was ever recorded as her representative payee, and how conserved benefit funds are handled when the beneficiary reaches eighteen. This is a free phone call and it may answer the whole question. 4. On the CSS Profile, report the asset as it is actually titled. If you genuinely cannot confirm the account exists or who owns it, say so and keep a record of your attempts to find out — do not guess a number. 5. If he refuses to account, she can bring the matter to Probate Court herself once she is eighteen, or to the Superior Court if a family case between you and him is already pending, as Sender indicates. 6. If it turns out he used any of the money for his own obligations, say so explicitly in any filing. Under Mangiante that is the allegation that puts the burden on him to prove fair dealing by clear and convincing evidence. 7. Contact Connecticut legal aid and the law school clinics. A demand-for-accounting matter is exactly the kind of discrete problem clinics take.

⏱ Time limits apply. The age at which custodial property must be turned over is set by the Connecticut Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, §§ 45a-557 through 45a-560b, and by the terms of the original transfer — it is not automatically eighteen. Confirm the turnover age for this specific account, and note that financial-aid filing deadlines run on their own calendar regardless of whether the account question is resolved.