gifting the purchase price to son

ognum

Cakeguts wrote: »

There is evidence of someone that I don't want to go into on here but my comment was based on evidence. If this goes wrong it has the possibility of going very wrong.

So you know one person where it has gone wrong and you are prepared to tell someone not to do this on the evidence (unsubstantiated) of this.

Op you know your child, you know if there is likely to be an issue with this.

There are no tax or legal reasons not to go ahead with your scheme if you choose. You decide.

Cakeguts

The only thing I will say is if the person who is given the flat decides that they don't need to work you have to think about how they fill their time during the day when everyone else is at work and those activities are what cause the problem. I am sure that the person who has a ruined life had parents who knew their child but it hasn't stopped it from being a problem.

It sounds a lovely idea to give someone a flat but there are risks to this that most people don't seem to think about.

Grenage

It's a fair point that you can spoil a child so much, that they end up a little brat with a false sense of entitlement. That said, a student is no longer a child, and has mostly developed.

You're a generous parent!

joannaber

Thanks to all who replied. My son is studying engineering so I hope he will get a job when he finishes. It is a 5 year course(including 1 year in industry). So that is a lot of student loan to repay. He is currently in halls, but for next year the rates are about £85 per week plus bills. We have been saving money for many years but now the interest rates are so low that is why I am thinking of just giving him the money to buy a flat. There is no problem if the solicitor needs to look at our statements. So it looks like we will go ahead and do it.
Jo

ognum

Cakeguts wrote: »

There is evidence of someone that I don't want to go into on here but my comment was based on evidence. If this goes wrong it has the possibility of going very wrong.

So you know one person where it has gone wrong and you are prepared to tell someone not to do this on the evidence (unsubstantiated) of this.

Op you know your child, you know if there is likely to be an issue with this.

There are no tax or legal reasons not to go ahead with your scheme if you choose. You decide.

ReadingTim

Cakeguts wrote: »

The only thing I will say is if the person who is given the flat decides that they don't need to work you have to think about how they fill their time during the day when everyone else is at work and those activities are what cause the problem.

Well, if we're going down the Daily Mail route, then I'd rather this juvenile delinquent in training carried out these "activities" you speak so darkly of in a flat paid for by his parents than one paid for by the taxpayer.

martindow

I think one worry is being a student at the moment he has no idea of where he is going to be working after he graduates.

Maybe it would be better to hold of for a couple of years so he doesn't have the added complication of selling and moving in the near future.

Once he knows where he is going to be, your gift would be very welcome and a generous gift.

bowlhead99

joannaber wrote: »

It is a 5 year course(including 1 year in industry). So that is a lot of student loan to repay. He is currently in halls, but for next year the rates are about £85 per week plus bills. We have been saving money for many years but now the interest rates are so low that is why I am thinking of just giving him the money to buy a flat.

It's a generous thing to do. But perhaps finance is not the only thing to consider.

How many other students live on their own in heir own flat? Maybe it is different at your son's university but usually a very small percentage. The typical thing to do is to either live in halls on a university campus or nearby - which are designed around having a large number of students living together - or to move out of halls and into a shared house with other students.

Avoiding both of those standard options to go and live on your own in your own flat, can totally change the social dynamic during those 'formative years' at university. You're no longer traveling back to halls with other students after a busy afternoon of study or a night out. You're not sitting around with housemates asking if anyone fancies ordering a pizza or watching TV together. You don't as easily form the friendship bonds and networks that last a lifetime.

Going to uni and living in halls and then later with other people as housemates, is a massive part of university is about for a huge percentage of people that do it - yes you do the lectures and the exams, but you hang around with like-minded people (or in some cases very differently-minded people) and it shapes you as a person.

Whereas if you have your own private flat and a 10am lecture, you commute to that lecture and then if you don't know anyone very well because you don't live with them, you will either have the winning personality to force yourself into one of the natural social groups that have evolved from all the people that live together, or you go home.

So, if I had a child who was off exploring the world and finding his feet at university, I wouldn't pull him out into his own little bubble of a private owned flat and make him be an outsider to those others on his course or in his year group who live together more communally.

You mention he will have a placement/gap year in industry. Let's assume that the best possible placement he can find in the country is somewhere that isn't right on his doorstep and an easy commute from the flat you buy. So he will use his placement salary to rent a flat near where he works, and come back to the flat later for the last year or two. In order to get some kind of value from the flat in the meantime, while starting off in that first year of professional work, he has to get to grips with being a landlord (perhaps living in a different city from the flat)? Doesn't sound much like fun.

So, I'm generally not in favour of the idea, but it does depend on his personality, the town or city he's in, and a bunch of other things.

Obviously you know your child in terms of whether getting a free flat would make him a spoiled brat, and probably have enough experience of bringing him up that you know the answer to that. But at age 19 or whatever he is only just forming his own list of wants and needs and goals and becoming a proper adult, so it's presumptuous to think that you know what's best for him. Even he might not know what's best for him but you can be pretty sure that if you offer him a free flat worth £100k+ he wouldn't turn it down - which means that just by offering it, you have railroaded him into a decision by effectively making it on his behalf.

If you really must buy something for him at such a young age, one option to consider is getting a bigger place, say 3 bed flat or 4 bed terraced house, instead of something 'just for him' - and have him team up with housemates paying rent, which could support the fact that it would cost more than £120k so you'd need a mortgage on it.

In that way, he would avoid giving thousands of pounds to a landlord himself, while keeping the more 'usual' UK student social dynamic (things have moved on a bit from The Young Ones, but not in every sense).

Bottom line, I don't think this is a purely financial decision. The various options to resolve his 'halls of residence bills are quite pricey' is perhaps a moneysavingexpert problem. But if a solution is 'pull him out of halls and stick him in a flat a few miles down the road from all the other students', that sort of thing to me is definitely not just about pounds and pence.

movilogo

Sadly, with the trend in house price lately, young generation has little chance to buy their own without their parents help

Bearly

I lived in halls for a year and hated it. I would never want to live with students again. I would have jumped at the chance of a parent giving me a flat - I would be very grateful.

Being an outsider is not about your location to others. If you don't fit in, you don't fit in. If you do , you do - having a flat to yourself won't make a difference to that.