To think this isn’t that common? Or do people keep it to themselves?

[Kevsap]

My friend has been gifted 100k in the last two years. Eight years prior to that she was given 15k. Every few months/ a year she has around 1k gifted. I consider her to be from a wealthy family and I don’t know anyone else who has this sort of money given to them? Are people just not saying it? I will literally never receive sums like this unless I won the lottery!! My friend seems to think this is pretty average.

Of course it's not usual for people to be given gifts of 100,000 pounds!

Of course its not "average ". Would your friend consider spending some of her vast wealth on a brain transplant?

Gift is both a noun and a verb. Hth.

My guess is that it’s probably quite common where families own their own homes. When my Grandma died, Dad didn’t need his share of the inheritance as he had already paid his mortgage off so I was given a good deposit towards my home. I don’t talk about it much with friends but appreciate I’m v fortunate. I aware of at least one other friend who has benefited in a similar way.

I don’t know anyone who has received such large amounts as gifts, but some who have inherited similar or more. I guess it’s a family wealth thing? Some people pass on money early to try an avoid inheritance tax maybe? I don’t know how it all works but maybe that’s part of it?

I’ve inherited money which has turned out to be a lot (trust funds or funds which mature) and yes my nana would throw me and family money every year or so which could be significant eg a few thousand. This was later in life and was so she could avoid tax or whatever. If I ever needed though expensive dental work she’d always offer to pay for it or even at one point expensive highlights for my hair.

I declined a few of these because it didn’t seem right. My nana thought she didn’t come from money but she liked to treat us albeit later in life. She wasn’t allowed to do this when I was a child or not much (various reasons).

I do know other people though one friend inherited £50K from her aunt and the fiance or she was quite cavalier about it and I thought well better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!

Most of my family’s money is tied up in property now, a few buy to lets or bought outright cheap now rented out. I know some people think this is bad but my DB doesn’t have and won’t have much of a state pension due to not contributing much in NI contributions when younger. So it’s swings and roundabouts really.

A few I know do give away money precisely for inheritance tax purposes.

It’s not generally common, in that there aren’t that many rich people. But I do think that amongst rich people it’s probably quite common - gifting sums of money is a way of driving down inheritance tax liability so is likely part of rich people’s estate planning.

I don't think it's as uncommon as you might think. I think there are a lot of people who sit somewhere in the middle of the financial spectrum, owning houses worth more than they ever dreamed of and with decent pensions from defined benefit schemes.

I have a friend who has ended up as the only one of her generation. Her parents had siblings but none of them had children and so she's ended up inheriting every few years as her aunts and uncles and her mum's cousins have died off. She also had three godparents all of whom have left her money. None of them were what you'd call wealthy, most were teachers or engineers.

She and I both started off flatsharing in London at around the same time in the early 80s. At that point I earned a bit more than she did. Then she inherited £10k from a grandparent which was enough to enable her to buy a one-bed flat in Notting Hill. Three years later, when I'd scraped together enough to buy a one-bed flat in a dodgy area, she inherited a bit more and traded up to a 2-bedroom house in Mortlake. Subsequent gifts and inheritances, plus stable work and promotions, helped her pay the mortgage off and trade up to a house in Chiswick.

Her parents divorced when she was in her 20s. Both her mother and father remarried, both to partners with some money. Both were in a position to be generous to her and she used to get the maximum tax allowable cash gifts from each of them for Christmas and birthday (currently £3k a year). When her father died he left everything to my friend's stepmother, who died unexpectedly not long afterwards. My friend inherited a large bungalow in the New Forest and around £300k in cash. She grumbled about having to pay inheritance tax for the first time.

My friend is single, was a senior theatre nurse but was able to retire from the NHS and take her pension at 50. She now lives in her own very nice Grade 2 listed house with river view in Twickenham, within a short walk of her mum's home. Her mum gifted her own home to my friend several years ago to avoid inheritance tax. The mother has a full teaching pension of around £30k, plus half her late husband's pension, plus the state pension. Plus whatever she's inherited from her own family and has saved over the years. She pays my friend £20k 'rent' pa for the house and my friend uses that money to maintain the place. In terms of those two properties alone my friend must be worth around £4 million and my guess is that she has another £million+ invested for income, as well as her NHS pension and, down the line, state pension.

Sorry to go into such detail, but I wanted to indicate how someone from a fairly ordinary family of teachers, nurses and engineers can end up being worth millions as a result of the property price boom, buying in the right place at the right time, generous public sector pensions and the good fortune to be the end of the family line. I don't know anyone else from an ordinary family who's benefited quite as much as this friend, but without going through all my contacts I can think of a dozen 'ordinary' people who were able to pay off their mortgages early and retire early as a result of inheritances.

Perhaps she has a secret sugar daddy 😉 I'm kidding well some are just lucky I guess

I don’t think it’s common. I have rich parents but have never been gifted large sums of money. I will do it for my kids though .

It definitely is. Only gifts outside of the annual exemption amount which are made within seven years of death are taxable. So giving amounts away early makes sense if the aim is to avoid IHT.

I know when I was a young adult.. I got given diddly squat!

As I've got older and our kids have grown up, we've gifted them small amounts for things like weddings, babies etc.

I think if it's affordable most parents will help their children..

The difference being between it being appreciated or taken for granted

More people have more money than a lot of people realise op. And more people have less too.

I do know people who’ve been given such sums by parents. But for pretty obvious reasons, they don’t smugly shout about it to others who may well be less fortunate.

We received £35k from my parents and grandparents towards our house deposit. This was added to £80k that we'd saved. The part from my grandparents is early inheritance. My family isn't obviously wealthy, living in an overcrowded 3 bed semi in an unfashionable part of an unfashionable suburb, but clearly does have wealth. My husband's parents weren't and will never be in a position to give

We have talked about it with friends and on forums a couple of times, when the subject of struggling to buy a house comes up.

We think it's important to counter the narrative that "anyone can save for a deposit if you just stop buying lattes or avocados", which was vv prevalent in the right wing press at the time

Yes we did save but actually the single biggest enabling factor was that there were two of us (halved rent, double the savings, double the available mortgage), followed by help from parents.

The housing crisis is widening and entrenching existing generational inequalities and unless we talk about it honestly there'll be no impetus for real policy change

And anyway, when I have discussed with friends they've said something along the lines of "yes I did wonder", so might as well be honest

Most people get a few £100K gifted each year from the family trust, surely?

Thinking about your post @Leypt1 , I used to live in a fairly dodgy area of London where, even in fairly recent years, migrants families from around the world would arrive and pool resources as an extended family to get members on the property ladder. In that area (a lot of Cypriots) the large extended families would support young couples with deposits and mortgage payments and when they hit middle age and were more secure they were expected to pay back. I've seen it happening recently among Polish and other eastern European immigrants. I've helped out my nephew and niece. It's how you do it when resources are stretched.

i have been gifted 100k. It was due to my parents selling a house in an expensive part of the country and buying in a cheaper part. It was a bit of chance/good luck that they bought and sold when they did. A few years either side of the move and the profit from the sale wouldn’t have been as much, and therefore I wouldn’t have been gifted the 100k.

I don't think it's that uncommon and people often keep quiet about it. As friends can get quite envious when folk come into money.

I don't talk about the money parents give me, why would I? What goes on with my family is no ones business but ours.

Every so often (usually when we're moving house of some other big event) my parents will give us a chunk of money. It's our inheritance but my Dad would rather us have it now when we need it than have to may inheritance tax on it later on.

But if it's common then why would anyone get envious?

I'd love it if someone gave me 100k. No its not normal, I don't even know anyone with 100k so I definitely don't know anyone who would give it away

No, it's not normal for the average person. It may well be for rich people.
However, what I would say it's pretty common is adult children being allowed to live at home for free or only a small cost and also plenty of people being helped with a house deposit.

In my circle if someone says they're treating you/giving you a gift/whatever they probably mean a £25 Tesco voucher. I've never known of anyone getting thousands of pounds. How the other half live hey!