How to best pass on my cash to my adult children

Malthusian

Skibunny40 wrote: »

To take a slightly opposing view, if the OP wants to give money to his children now rather than wait until it's an inheritance then surely that can be done without him ending up in a state-run dire care home?

Indeed and no-one's suggested otherwise. But the original question wasn't "can I give away money I'll never need", it was "can I give away money I will need for care and get the council to dump me in Overmydeadbody Grove".

It should also be borne in mind that while the average stay in a care home is around two years, that consists of a lump of people who die within months followed by a very long tail. Some people stay in a care home for years on end.

Giving away all your money apart from three years' care home expenses would be risky. It will eliminate the option of buying a care annuity unless you are so frail that you are virtually certain not to need one.

fjh

If you have cash in bank or similar - can you not just make accounts joint with children or is that deemed deprecation ?
As under joint accounts when one party 0
‘Passes’ the monies revert to survivor .

Malthusian

fjh wrote: »

If you have cash in bank or similar - can you not just make accounts joint with children or is that deemed deprecation ?
As under joint accounts when one party 0
‘Passes’ the monies revert to survivor .

Half the account would be automatically assessed as yours, and if you transferred the account into joint names in an attempt to avoid care fees, the whole lot would be.

bostonerimus

You should start planning for inheritances and car home costs etc as early as possible. If you are wealthy you are going to run into having to pay for care and deal with IHT.

In the case of care costs it's unfortunate that the UK does not have long term care insurance policies, but would one solution be to buy a term life insurance policy within a trust? You'd have to pay for care out of your own pocket, but you would have protected some money from IHT and your beneficiaries would get the insurance money when you die. Of course you've got to pay the premiums and this would be bets as a long term plan that you start as early as possible.