If you got a big financial leg up from your parents …

[anotherside]

I’m talking a significant amount, at least enough for a comfortable house down payment. So say at least 20-30k and then all the way up to £millions.

So if you received a big cash/property gift from parents, have you always been entirely grateful for it? Or is there some part of you that wishes they hadn’t given you it, in order that you could have achieved (or tried to achieve) everything completely independently.

Wouls be interested to hear thoughts on this (along with how much you actually received if willing to say, as a leg up of say £30k vs £300k vs £1 million is qualitatively pretty different).

@Simone111 gosh that's insane how your DS could inherit. I guess you have got to hope some of it is burned on care home fees or something.

My and partners parents never gave us anything, though my partner’s parents did lend us 10k about fifteen years ago to help get our business started, without which we would have still found a way around things, but it would I accept have been more difficult. We repaid it (and much more in fact as our business took off) 3-4 years after the case.

But we never received anything in the way of a gift/house deposit etc and I already felt a bit uncomfortable about that loan, hence we paid it back as soon as we could afford (with a fair bit of interest by way of some very expensive birthday gifts etc) . But I’m not sure how I would have felt had my parents for example given me a big cash gift when I was 18 or 20 et cetera, hence the question.

Anyway we now have two children of our own and are considering how much to give them when they are adults. We’ve done well enough recently that we could easily afford to give each of them a large sum, even six figures if we wanted to. But I’m not sure that’s a good idea so wanted to hear other peoples feelings on it. My instinct is probably to see how they go themselves first, and then if there’s a struggle down the line to afford something, eg house deposit, then wait for that moment. I guess something that complicates the matter for me was that I never really wanted to settle down and purchase a property in my 20s. And then in my 30s when I did reach that stage we were fortunate enough to to have the means ourselves and so never really considered “oh wouldn’t it be nice to have someone gift us 20-30k” at this juncture (or 5-10 years ago). Play things by ear perhaps.

@anotherside I think it completely depends upon what housing costs where you live. We live in SE London (moved here 27 years ago when house prices were not that bad). I remember about 13 years ago driving my 5-6 year old son through some of the streets near our house and he suddenly piped up from the back of the car “mummy, how much do houses cost”, so I replied and told him that the houses that we were driving past (2-3 bedroom terraced houses) cost on average £500,000, or half a million pounds. He was absolutely shocked, and I could hear him whisper to himself “how am I going to afford that?”. It does really worry me. Housing is much more expensive now. We moved further out, but you are probably looking at around £500,000 for a small flat now, where we used to live.

Being completely honest, I really feel that me & dh are pretty much morally obliged to massively downsize, when the time comes, to release a large chunk of equity to be split between the kids, solely to enable them to access housing, as it will probably be impossible (unless they all manage to get super-high salaried jobs, which is highly unlikely). The only reason we have that equity is because house prices have escalated so much, that it is now impossible for those who are yet to get on the ladder.

We didn’t have any help so it’s hard to know if it would have felt any different. I suppose DH and I do have a certain sense of pride that everything we have we have achieved on our own merits… although I realise we had non financial privileges that made it possible such as caring parents, a certain intelligence level etc.

We will be helping our DC because things seem so much tougher for YP now. We won’t buy them a whole house or flat outright even if can afford it because it seems a rite of passage almost to strive and save even a bit towards a deposit and then have even a small mortgage to have the satisfaction of paying off. They felt like milestones that gave a sense of accomplishment for DH and I but perhaps I’m overthinking things!

My parents were incredibly supportive—paying my university tuition when it was still affordable and letting me live at home so I didn’t need maintenance loans. I stayed with them for a couple of years while job-hunting in a big city, saving money and avoiding financial stress, and they never charged me a penny. They even made sure I had a simple, modest two-bedroom terraced house to live in during my first working years away from home. We’re a debt-averse family—if we can help each other, we do. When someone needs a hand, we offer it, but we always make sure we understand the situation first. We talk, share what’s going on, and steer clear of debt and financial messes. If there’s a way to help without hurting ourselves, we’ll do it—that’s just how we were raised.

My parents gave DH and I £100k as a house deposit when I was 24. Over the last 15 years DHs parents have also given us around £100k in various things (paying for work on our house, paying off car loans, big lump sums from various inheritances etc). Both our parents are very well off but use the money in different ways. My parents gave us that money as a one off gift, whereas DHs mums love language is gift giving, so she prefers to offer to pay for things for us. Both parents covered the cost of our wedding too (10k from DHs and 25k from mine).

We are immensely grateful and know we are so lucky to have them support us in those ways. We earn very well ourselves now, but we would be nowhere near where we are house wise or lifestyle wise without their help.

Thankfully neither sets of parents use money as a weapon, which I have seen happen to a lot of my friends in similar family situations. They’ve never held the money over our heads or used it to guilt us or control our life choices. It’s very much freely given. DHs parents also pay for loads of things for our kids - clothes, my older child’s private autism diagnosis process, his ongoing speech therapy, a holiday to centre parcs every year for us etc.

My parents are multimillionaire and could have helped me enormously but held it over me to abuse me and keep contact and keep me in line. They offered numerous times (unasked by me) to buy me a house, chose the house and then I had to pull out as they told me I wasn’t grateful enough or some other made up thing. The reality is they were never ever going to help me but had me lined up to be their local carer and punch bag so I told them where to stick their money. They are still living around the corner 85/80 and wealthy and lonely and I don’t want it. If they ever left me any I would immediately gift it to DC with no strings attached of course to help them

We have just given our one DC most of our Defined Contribution 25% pension plan payout, plus two inheritances, totalling almost £300,000 which should mean it is free of IHT. When settled, it should buy a house. No dependents. It is just tax planning.

Grateful. And I want to pass it on to my own offspring.

My dad bought a house for us outright, it was an early inheritance as he sold some property he owned. I will be forever grateful to him for that, we were renting and would never been able to save up a decent deposit, and I know how lucky I am. It gives me and my family security, and always have a roof over our heads.

I didnt get a "big leg up" but I got a 10k loan from a family member which I repaid over 5 years in 2012 which meant I could buy a 250k flat.
That was game changing. It enabled me to stop renting. I had lodgers for 7 years and used thst to overpay.the mortgage and save in S&S isas which it meant i had a 350k deposit for the next place.

The loan was held over my head and I had to do a lot of scrimping and bowing. It was worth it.

A girl I went to school with was "bought" a house on Harringey ladder in 2005. Her parents put down 50% deposit, and the deal was she sublet the 2 other bedrooms to pay the mortgage. I cant even fathom what kind of amazing house she's in now. She probably had 500k+ equity in 2012 when I had scrapped 40k together 🤣🤣🤣

We're not multi-millionaires either. I just don't want to sponsor hand outs.

Mine was left by a grandmother that died before I was born, but I didn’t get until 25. I only rented for a year after uni and wasn’t throwing money down the drain. It paid for my first masters, it was a great help, but I don’t really think about it.

We were gifted £10k as a deposit for our first flat, yes very grateful. It paved the way, got us on the ladder and helped us make a profit on that property when we sold it to buy a house.
We’ll do the same for our children when they need it.

My parents are very generous and I’m eternally grateful. £200k in house deposits, big white wedding, uni fees etc.

It didn’t impact my choices or attitude towards hard work at all. I’m in the career I always wanted to be in and earning well. Their contribution to our lifestyle doesn’t belittle what we have achieved independently.

DH and I have two young kids and opened bank accounts for them as soon as we registered their births, they also have ISA’s which they will be able to access at 18. We plan to gift them house deposits and support them where we can, though they are set to inherit well from my parents eventually (obviously this is not guaranteed).

We didn’t have any help because our parents didn’t have it but we gifted each of our sons £60k for deposits along with helping with buying furniture etc. We have also bought them each a decent car. They also both got £20k inheritance from my mum
last year.
They have good jobs but it would have taken them years to be able to save enough for a deposit so if we could help, we were happy to. They neither asked for nor expected this kind of help and are very grateful. I’d rather they have it now when they need it than having to wait another 30 (hopefully!) years to inherit from us.