If you were left £450k inheritance, would you give your adult children something?

[Jinnybean]

Mil has been left a large sum. She’s always said that she will give Dh £10k.

It’s been nearly a year and she hasn’t mentioned it at all. We know she had the money a month ago.

I can’t imagine having that much money are not helping my children/grandchildren out. She is mortgage free.

Would you help your Dc out?

My parents have enough money out of their inheritance to buy my house outright, they are also mortgage free. They have never offered my sister and I any more than the odd £100 here and there. My dad used to be generous pre-inheritance but since the money came his way, several years ago he has become obsessed with it.

Once mortgage free, if I had a substantial amount of money, a house deposit for the children if they don't already own, a family trip together and a few ££ for savings for them.

Though, this isn't the case for everyone.

MIL came into around 100k a few years ago. She's never offered a penny, she has however paid for a few Chinese takeaways for us. Tbh it's not something I can blame her for. DH is awful with money, and he needs to know reliance on anyone else financially is not an option otherwise he will become wreckless again.

In all honesty, I'd give each of my 3 children £150k each, but they are sensible and would use it for housing deposits.

@mygenericusername

My parents are very much like this. I’ll get it one day apparently but in reality it will be pissed up the wall on care home fees. I’ve planned for zero inheritance.

Paying for care home fees isn’t ‘pissing it up the walls’ as you so delightfully put it! It could be the difference between spending the last years of your life in comfort, or in a bit of a basic home funded by the Council.

450k will give you an annual pension of about 17-20K
if the FIL predeased MIL his allowance will be added so 2 x325K 650K if it includes a house that is another 100K +
it depends on how old MIL is and whether she has an adequate pension and whether she can live on current pension is she getting full state pension does she have a widows pension from FIL does she have a private pension of her own?
my parents have inherited less but I expect them to keep it as my DM is much younger than DF and could need another 20 years their pension is not great as it is frozen so its value in real terms decreases every year as my DF workplace pension was robbed by collapsing company so he gets less than he would have done al;ready so it's not index linked at all if all my parents inheritance goes on keeping them in decent care until they die I will be happy, I would never want them to have sub standard lives so I could get more now, we have a tiny mortgage and although we have lower than average income we could downsize and I have a good pension, I would not be amused if my siblings thought they should get it now
when it comes to deprivation of assets for care home fees they can go back a lot lot further than 7 years

We are supposed to want better for our children, or that was what we used to think. Some people in one generation has hoarded housing and wealth without ever being called “entitled” or “grabby”. I hope other generations don’t follow their example.

Depends on there attitude and if I had a grabby DIL

If we were to inherit £450.000 at this precise moment in time, we would keep £150,000 to cushion our retirement and gift £150,000 each to our children (22 and 19).
Our mortgage is paid and we have fairly comfortable pension provision. Our DC on the other hand will struggle to ever amass that sort of pot.

She’s only had the money a month! That’s 30 days. And you are already trying to make a grab for it.

What’s your relationship with her like? Is part of the family or kept at arms length.

There are so many questions to be answered it’s not so black and white

its lovely seeing how generous people are with other peoples money 😂

"How are care home fees "pissing it up the wall"? Do you think they should just be shot when they get to a certain age or are you planning to take care of them?"

I presume OP was realising that a person's whole life savings can be gone in a few weeks on care home fees and then they will be dependent on council funding anyway so the outcome is the same as if they had no money (for the couple, not necessarily for the taxpayer).

We had a similar situation
Turns out she thinks she has given the money - she hasn't
Cant bring up due to parent circumstances changing - thats life

"Paying for care home fees isn’t ‘pissing it up the walls’ as you so delightfully put it! It could be the difference between spending the last years of your life in comfort, or in a bit of a basic home funded by the Council."

10k is not going to be that difference.

@HandlebarLadyTash

We had a similar situation Turns out she thinks she has given the money - she hasn't Cant bring up due to parent circumstances changing - thats life

oh no 😳

I mean £10k of £450k isn’t much. I’d have hoped she’d have passed it on by now if she was going to. In the circumstances you describe I’d get DH to ask her outright what’s happening.

FWIW when my parents passed away I had to share it with a lot of siblings so my chunk was pretty small. I split my share between my DC’s and me getting an equal amount. So I don’t think it’s unusual for parents to pass on inheritance.

If I didn't need the money to pay of mortgage etc I would give more than 10k to my DC with no conditions on how it's spent either! I've only got 2 DC so it would be a nice life changing amount. Obviously as adults, not teens

She might be considering her options and getting financial advice. I believe you have to do certain things to give large amounts of money from an inheritance, otherwise there is a limit each year to how much you can give before it gets complex, tax wise. Maybe she's getting advice.

@tinselvestsparklepants

She might be considering her options and getting financial advice. I believe you have to do certain things to give large amounts of money from an inheritance, otherwise there is a limit each year to how much you can give before it gets complex, tax wise. Maybe she's getting advice.

Correct - There are annual exemptions from Inheritance Tax £3k per annum.

There may be larger calcualtions going on in the background if IHT is an issue.

If she were to gift your DH money and not live 7 years, then your DH would be liable for the IHT if any is due.

@Gwenhwyfar

"How are care home fees "pissing it up the wall"? Do you think they should just be shot when they get to a certain age or are you planning to take care of them?"

I presume OP was realising that a person's whole life savings can be gone in a few weeks on care home fees and then they will be dependent on council funding anyway so the outcome is the same as if they had no money (for the couple, not necessarily for the taxpayer).

The outcome isn’t the same if you’ve given it away. It’s called deprivation of assets and the recipients would have to hand it back.

I'm sorry you lost your father.

It takes time to come to terms with the death of a parent. Your MIL has also lost a parent and will have experienced similar emotions.

I would give them 50k each - which would be a significant enough amount for a property deposit
I would pay off my own mortgage and add the rest to my tiny retirement fund

My dad inherited about that much, didn’t give me or my DB anything but I don’t think either of felt like he should, it’s his inheritance, not mine. That said, we’re both very well off, both sets of DH and my parents also very well off so everyone will inherit something eventually, If we needed money for something specific I’m sure they would but right now it’d be a case of it sitting in our savings account rather than theirs. DH parents inherited probably 2-3x when the last grandparent passed away, also didn’t give any of DC any as no one needed it for anything specific. Would be a different case of any of us needed anything.

If you want to give away part of an inheritance you get a solicitor to draw up a Deed of Variation to the deceased's will and this takes it out of your estate for IHT purposes - it's as though the deceased left your children the money instead of you gifting it. It also cancels out any claims of deprivation of assets if you have to go into care.

It is Christmas soon, maybe she is planning to give you a huge cheque then?

@Gwenhwyfar

"Paying for care home fees isn’t ‘pissing it up the walls’ as you so delightfully put it! It could be the difference between spending the last years of your life in comfort, or in a bit of a basic home funded by the Council."

10k is not going to be that difference.

10k buys my dad another year living at home which is where he desperately wants to stay.