Money gift

Baz-n-Lin

My Mother is in her 90's and in good health she has savings in excess of 25k. She has made a will but she would like to 'gift' some of her savings to her 3 children now. A. How much is she allowed to gift and how often. Please can you advise me what the implications of this would be if B. she had to go into a nursing home or C. she died.
Thank you.

opinions4u

A. As much as she likes when she likes.

B. The local authority could reasonably argue that it is deprivation of assets to avoid paying for nursing care and could effectively get an order forcing the recipients to repay the money to her.

C. If her estate is worth over £325k then there could be an IHT liability on the estate against part or all of the value of gifts made in the previous 7 years.

B is the greyest area and I would suggest that she makes smaller occasional gifts (e.g. £1k at a time) rather than more significant sums that stand out like a sore thumb!

Baz-n-Lin

Thank you very much for your reply which is most helpful and given us all something to think about and discuss. Hopefull nursing home or death is still a long way off and at the end of the day we just want our Mum to do what is best for her.

RayWolfe

Baz-n-Lin wrote: »

at the end of the day we just want our Mum to do what is best for her.

In that case you must persuade her to keep her money as she doesn't know what is around the corner.