to ask how you plan to protect your children's inheritance

[OrangeMabel]

DD only aged 10 but my main goal is to make sure she has a home for life; with us whilst she's young then a house for herself when she's an adult. So I eventually want to make provision to buy her a house that can't be touched to pay our care home fees, should we need them.

Anyone else got similar goals for their kids and, if so, how to you plan to achieve them?

I hoped to sell our house when the children leave home, buy a smaller house more fitting to the needs of a couple. Then lend (will proper legal agreements drawn up) the DCs the purchase price of a house for each of them. They make monthly 'mortgage' payments back to us. We don't charge them interest so they just pay back the amount they borrowed. Win-win they get to buy a house cheaply without interest, we get an income. The fatal hole in my plan is that the sale of our house will not produce enough money to then buy four smaller properties, we do have three BTL properties so we could always sell them though. Oh, and the DCs might not want to/be ready to buy a house when it suits us.

My oldest child is special needs. He is never going to be able to earn enough to buy himself his own secure home. I will be setting up a trust for him so that at least i know he will always have a roof over his head.

I lke this, "the inheritance you give your children is the values, security and education that you give them"

I plan to get my children through university and set up in a home before I die. I had them young so it might happen, but plans can quite easily be screwed over! I'd rather do that than leave them an inheritance.

I will probably give them what I have before I die while in still youngish and healthy. I don't plan on having much left either to leave, or to be taken in care home fees. I'd rather make the most of what I have while my children need it and I can enjoy it.

You won't be having a very happy old age, OP, in the type of care home the state pays for.

This just isn't true. There are state funded patients in exactly the same care homes recieveing exactly the same care as self funding patients. I don't see the point of saving for the possibility that I might need care when I may well have no need for it, and when I do, it's unlikely to get me anything I couldn't have got anyway.

Another agree with "the inheritance you give your children is the values, security and education that you give them".

We're going down the spend on education now then find your own way as an adult route.

To ensure your children get your inheritance, and not another woman's children, is to leave your assets to your children in your will.

This is law anyway in France and Spain - blood line children are the heirs not spouses or stepchildren

The greatest inheritance you can give your children is your own financial independence. That's what I'm leaving DS, anyway. The square root of nowt, because I've squandered it on gin and my care home fees. Independently.

Most people going into care homes are in their 80s and 90s. So, depending on when you had your kids, they are likely to be in their 50s or 60s. They will probably have their own home (rented or bought) by then. My parents worried about this, but I was very clear that I would MUCH rather they sold their home to fund decent care should they need it, than do some (morally bankrupt) "financial planning" to move assets so council can't sell home, and then end up in a care home that might not meet their needs.
Most people NEVER end up in a care home, and most people can be supported to live at home until they die.

OP, so basically you want to kill two birds with one stone - give/gift/transfer (whatever the legal term is) your assets to your DD to secure here future which wil at the same time remove the threat of your LA insisting you use those assets to pay for your care.

There probably is a way to do this, but I would ask a solicitor who specialises in IHT planning, not MN.

The other problem (as you may see it) with my plan is that I don't actually 'give' them anything, I make them buy things from me

We are lucky in that all our dc are adults and all are home owners now.I do worry about future for dgc though. We didn't buy houses for any of the dc but I think it is harder now [our dc are aged between 38 and 44].

I don't plan to protect my children's inheritance, I plan to spend it.

I think you have lovely intentions, though I have no idea about the financial aspect of things.

One thing you could do is help your DD with a house deposit, were she to want to buy herself. That was the best thing that my parents and ILs did for us as we could afford mortgage repayments, we just didn't have a massive cash deposit.

Roll on to now, I'm a SAHM and we have a toddler and another on the way and it's always nice when a grandparent offers to pay for something pricey but necessary, e.g. first shoes for DD or a new double pram. I would never expect these things btw, but ILs especially have a real sense that this is the time in our lives when money would be at its tightest, however we did things - so me working and childcare costs or me being a SAHM and down to one salary. They're very much of the opinion that we won't need any potential inheritance when we're in our fifties or whatever - so like to help now when it's needed/most appreciated. I hope I can do the same for mine when they're older.

we have no inheritance they can buy their own house when they get jobs we will probably need to sell our tiny flat for care anyway , or a cruise and a piss up before we pop or cloggs,

I plan to teach by children the importance of working hard and paying for things themselves .

If I have a property worth a significant sum of money or significant savings it would be wrong to hide that and expect the tax payer to foot the bill for my care.

I think you need to think very carefully about this having since first hand in my extended family how detrimental being financially really secure can be.

My mum and dad are self made and then have become very wealthy due to inheritance. I am self made (to a substantial value at 40 and a single parent )based on the values my parents gave me and in all likelihood will become very wealthy on inheritance, but I'm not bargaining on this and hope it is a very long way away.
I hope to instill these values in my DD and as my parents did I hope to be able to 'gift' her her education. I would hope she will become self made until late in her life when yes there is probably a very good chance that she will become very wealthy. On our side the wealth is slowly growing with each generation.
The extended family have had all the same advantages, but the money has been up front as opposed to later in life and to be honest it is being frittered away by each generation. There will be virtually nothing for DD's generation.

OP - i'm confused about the timings you are thinking of, are you planning on your DD living with you forever and wanting her to keep your current family house after you go into a home or are you thinking that when she's in her 20s and ready to move out of the family home you'll buy her a house in her name for herself and want to be certain that wouldn't be taken off her to pay for your care fees?

At the risk of being nosing, how old are you and how good's your health? If you are in your 40s with a 10 year old, and you think you could afford to buy her a house in 15 years time, then she will have that for what, 20 years before it's likely you'll need to pay for care home fees or pay inheritance tax?

I think (although you need to check) if she's living in the family home at the point you move into a care home (and has been for a long time), she can't be forced to sell it to pay for your care - but check that. However, do you think it's likely she'll never marry/move away before she's in her 40s? not go off and have a family of her own? Realistically, unless there's SN you've not mentioned, it's unlikely your house will be her home at the point you need care fees, she might well have bought her own house and be mortgage free before you need care/in a home.

If you are trying to work out a way to ensure she will get to keep your house as well, think about what's going to happen to it for the time you are in a care home. Realistically, your house will be sold if you need long term care because well, in the case of my Grandmother, that would have meant her house standing empty for over 10 years (7 of them in a carehome, the rest at my parents house - funnily enough my mum didn't want to moveback into her childhood home to care for her, Grandmother moved in to my parents' house).

Will you be able to give her the money for a disposit or total costs of her own house when she's first looking for a property of her own?

Is there really much difference in avoiding care home fees, or avoiding your children having to live in social housing and claim HB? I can't see the difference myself. Either way, you are going to provide something for your own family and your family is going to take from the state.

who says the OP child couldnt pay her own social housing rent ? not everybody in social housing claims benefit you know ( no offence tot hose who do )

i will be putting my house in my kids names when im older , why should they not get what i have worked bloody hard for ,the goverment gets enough out of me , im not giving them my house into the bargain,my kids dipped out on holidays and things so i could afford a home for us, i wasnt lucky enough to get a council place , i dont see why should i pay for care when the person next to me gets it free because they smoked or pissed their money up the wall and didnt invest it .my money is for my kids and grandkids .

"I don't see the point of saving for the possibility that I might need care when I may well have no need for it, and when I do, it's unlikely to get me anything I couldn't have got anyway."

I thought you were against scroungers taking advantage of the public purse?

Or is this another little hypocrisy you allow yourself?

A Thing, if you can't beat em, you might as well join em!

Except there is a massive difference between planning to claim from the state and ending up needing a care home. No one chooses that, I'm sure most of us would prefer to plan to live out our lives in our own homes. Needing a care home because your health fails you in old age is scrounging, just the same as needing state assistance because of ill health in what should be working years isn't scrounging.

God, Britain really is fucked.

Full of spiteful nasty fuckers who hate the poor but who plan to milk the public purse for every penny they can get out of it.

These people want it every fucking way - they will boast about their supposed hard work and how they'd never depend on the state or have children they couldn't afford.

But they plan to give these children inheritances they can't afford by making themselves deliberate destitute in old age and forcing tax payers to fund their care.

Absolute naked hypocrisy.

imour - in my Grandmother's case, it wasn't the person next to her getting it for free, but then my Mother and her siblings would not leave my Grandmother in the home the council innitially put her in - which is the sort people who aren't able to fund themselves get put in. do some research locally, visit the sort of home you can get for free, visit the sort of home that's too expensive for any free places being offered at it, but that your house sale would pay for 10 years at. I wouldn't leave anyone in the 'free' place.

What you are saving for and what your family will need the money for, is if they find you have been put in a shithole that stinks of piss home that they aren't happy to leave you in, they have the funding available to move you without having to use their own savings to pay for it. I felt so sorry for anyone who had to see their mum or dad in that home and didn't have the money anywhere to move them to something better. I know several richer people who are directly paying their parents' care home fees, their parents don't have the money to pay themselves so could get a free place, but again, their children who can afford the spare cash have taken the decision to not leave their parents in the free home.

Erm, ok then Thing!