To favour one adult child financially?

[KariOn]

I have name changed for this because if anyone put it together with my other threads it might be quite identifying. Anyway the jist of what is keeping me awake tonight is trying to decide how to make some fairly major financial decisions which will affect my family. I have three adult children all now in their 20s. I think they were all brought up with equal amounts of love, attention, practical,emotional and financial support. The younger two are doing ok in life. They have had their problems and challenges but are generally happy in their jobs and relationships and are optimistically planning their futures. Sadly, we all now realise that the mental health problems that my oldest daughter has experienced since her early teens are never going to go away despite her and our best efforts. She has had to give up on her career and her relationship and it really seems unlikely she will ever be able to support herself financially. So I am considering selling our family home and with the addition of some savings, buying two small flats locally,one for me and one for my daughter. She could live with me but I think it is important she has her own home and independence with me close by to support her. The flat I buy for her would be in her name and owned outright by her. I would also aim to help her out with day to day expenses. My other two children live in rented accomodation and dont really have much chance of buying in the near future. I dont have any further funds to be able to help them with this. Is it unfair for me to help the one that I think most needs the help or should I be trying to treat them all equally despite the different circumstances? I suppose I dont know what problems they might have in the future.

I really don't understand people's reaction on these sorts of posts. I would favour the sibling who needs it.

To balance it a bit when you die split your flat between the other two. The others benefit from their sibling being supported and used to living alone and looming after herself too as when parents are gone it will fall to them if she needs to live with someone.

Talk to them, hopefully they will see the logic too.

OP has your dd ever been under section? If so have a look into section 117 aftercare - it can get her a lot of support (theoretically).

Looking at this from another perspective could your vulnerable child be worse off if you give favourable treatment now in the context of eligibility for benefits etc.

I think you need to take some soecialust legal advice. MIND could probably put you in touch with someone, or the Coram Society.

What is the nature of her MH issues? Has she been diagnosed, treated in any way?

This would be totally unfair. My situation is similar and my parents gave my sister money for a house as she can't work for mental health reasons. They pay loads of bills for her too.

I think your sister would say it’s totally unfair that through no fault of her own, she’s ended up with mental health problems so bad that she can’t work.

It’s hard being the one who gets less financial support from parents but I can almost guarantee it’s harder living with mental health issues.

I'd say this would be unfair to. Equal split is the only way to go. What if something happened to one of your other children and they desperately needed help and you couldn't help because you'd favoured the other so much? The resentment would be awful and I'd understand the siblings resentment.

I think most people just can’t imagine having a child who is never going to be at all independent LML

I have to say that siblings don’t really come into decision making when considering ds1 in financial terms - he needs what he needs. The alternative of leaving him the other side of the country away from all family contact is as unacceptable to them as it is to us. His siblings know that we would do the same for them within our ability to pay if they had the same level of need. His siblings have other support available to them (such as a roof over their heads in our house for as long as they need) which isn’t open to Ds1.

We have bought son with Aspergers a flat but we continue to own it and it goes back into the estate of which his half will go into a trust on our death, also we are saving hard to give other son the same money equivalent (fortunately the flat we bought ASC son is in a cheap area) towards a house when he is ready to buy. We checked with other son first that he is ok with this. You can draw up a will that automatically assigns money between siblings evenly in the case like this (it's called 'hotchpot') to even up the distribution. Have a word with a solicitor.

I come from a family with some severe mental health issues running throughout (think schizophrenia, sectioning etc) and I still think you are being unfair. I really think the only right thing to do is to treat your children equally and provide extra support to your dd whilst you are still here in the form of helping and encouraging her. Life is a funny thing and you just never know what’s round the corner for the other two, they may be doing well now but whose to tell what might happen.

If your daughter owns a flat outright, in her name, her access to benefits will be severely curtailed. You do not know what legal changes could be brought in, in the future either. My parents bought my sister a little house round the corner from them some years after she had been awarded SDA (severe disablement allowance). At the time, it was supposed to be a benefit that recognised that she would never be able to work, was not subject to means testing or review. She was in her 20s. About two years ago, that benefit was scrapped and the house means that she cannot access any of the means tested benefits.
Also, we ended up having to go through a process to put the house into a trust with my brother and I as trustees, to ensure that a predatory man couldn’t manipulate her into selling and letting him work his way through ‘their’ money.

I have a sibling who won’t be able to support themselves, and our parents estate will go to them (actually into a trust for their benefit) under their will. I’m happy with that and think it’s fairest in this situation.

However.....if they’d simply given that sibling all their money when we were all in our twenties I would have been VERY pissed off about it.

As it happens I had mental health difficulties in my thirties - sacked from my job, lost relationships, got into massive debt etc. My parents helped me through that. If they’d already decided that I was fine and set for life, they wouldn’t have been able to. I’d have been unemployed and homeless and sleeping on their sofa while my sibling enjoyed their own flat and income.

So I’m not saying don’t help your eldest but don’t put yourself in a position where you can’t help the others.

One of mine probably won't be able to live independently. But giving her more - well that stops her eventually having help with supported housing which she would need.

It's a tough one but I'd keep it fair. My DB struggled in his 20s with MH and addiction issues, and is now working and owns a flat with his GF. I was healthy and working during my 20s and am now diagnosed with a severe chronic illness and can't work. Things can change.

I should say that my brother and I never minded my sister being bought a house. My parents discussed it with us first and we all accepted that she could not work and, indeed, that at some point, as siblings we will be her support in life. Her house was bought with the best of intentions and with everyone’s agreement but it has not been the easy solution we thought it would be.

My situation is similar, both my siblings have struggled and my parents have very little money left after paying rents/ deposits and money here, there and everywhere.

We don't need my parent's money- some of their time would have been nice over the years but we've given up on that now. We asked for help once to help moving/ decorating when I was heavily pregnant and unwell but they told us that we should pay for a decorator so we don't ask again.

No you treat each one equally. This has happened with dh brother, his parents, have bought him a flat where they live in Cyprus as he wanted to move there, paid off his Mortgage on his house in Uk, and helped finance his business, as he was deemed more needy. Tge other two siblings get nothing, it has caused resentment, though the parents have said they will get it in inheritance, it's not the same.

Would it be worth discussing with your other children? My sister has much higher needs than the rest of us, and she is getting substantially more financial and practical help (including a house) - which I am absolutely fine with and in fact encourage.

However depending on her issues, buying a house for her may not be the best way. Could you buy two smaller properties, and rent one out - using that income to pay your daughter's rent on a different property? She is then living independently, eligible for benefits but you still have the property as an asset if required

Purple daisies. In my case my sisters mental health issues have been caused by smoking too much weed and choosing bad men and being happy to live off my parents even before they bought the house. Think boyfriend not paying rent so parents bailing out constantly, over and over. My parents have never learnt to say no to her. So no her life isn't harder because she's Ill. She has a walk in the park now. She functions completely normally, no medication, no work and rents out rooms in her house to get money. Doddle really compared to scraping together£60k for IVF with no parental help whilst she was smoking and drinking all my parents money at the same time.

Treat them equally, you have no idea what the future holds for your other two and you've said yourself you wouldn't be able to give them the same help. Buying two small properties and keeping in your name is a much better idea....

In this situation, I would” treat your dd in the same way that I would treat one of my dcs with significant disability.
And that means I would support that adult child first (because they need the help very clearly, more than the others).

I would however, be very careful not to put myself in such a situation that I would struggle financially. Not the least because it would mean I would then have little leeway to then carry in helping said child.
I would also consult a lawyer to see what would be the best arrangement (eg in case your dd remarry and gets manipulated into giving her flat away or is loosing it etc...)

I find the comments about how you shouldn’t do that an it’s unfair really interesting in the light of another thread a few weeks ago (about inheritance and wether to split equally or not) and where people we’re all saying ‘split equally but help your less well off children whilst you are alive’.

I'm not sure that you can do this as you don't know what will happen in the future. What would happen if one of your other 2 children became unable to support themselves?

We are financially secure, my siblings are not. We will be lucky enough to benefit from a significant inheritance. It will still be distributed equally. What I choose to do with my part is my own decision but my parents would not dream of not giving it equally.

It's a tough call and I understand your confusion.

PLEase take specialist advice re trusts and your Will.

Your daughter could rent a flat from you, and get the rent paid by the council, it is perfectly above board, and certainly has been for at least the last 15 years that I know of.

However, you will have to pay tax on the profit, exactly as you would if you rented a property out to anyone else, this will complicate your tax affairs. It would also count as an asset should you need care in the future and may need to be sold to cover your care costs in old age. Indeed if you put the property in DDs name it may have to be sold to cover her care costs.
The shared housing scheme referred to above looks interesting on the face of it.
Speak to some disability charities, get lots of advice, and think about you and all your children before making such a drastic decision. Although you want to see your DD settled, do you really want to downsize and live in a flat right now? Do you want to leave your family home? What if you become a Grandmother, don’t you want plenty of space to be able to have them to stay, play in the garden etc?
Your two younger children are going to want somewhere permanent to live too, there is little change of getting on the housing ladder without financial support from bank of Mum, how will they feel about the fact that they are working their socks off and unable to buy, but their DSis who doesn’t work has been provided with a home for life.

I think it's fine to treat them differently to ensure they're all equal, if that makes sense? But buying her a property and letting her live there rent-free while your other children pay rent and potentially may never be able to save a deposit to buy their own place does seem unfair.

I think its a bad idea, I would treat all my kids equally.

I think that I'd leave it a few years before introducing this type of inequality. As a house owning financially secure adult in their early 40s I'd take the view that supporting Dsis was family responsibility not just that of parents. As a 25yo in rented accommodation who couldn't afford to buy myself I may see what you are proposing differently.