Gifting money

Olawat

My 88yr old mother has recently sold her house in Wales for £120,000. She now lives in rented sheltered accommodation in the Midlands nearer to us, her children. She is in good health and does not need any care services.

She does not have any other assets.

She would like to gift her 3 children £20,000 each. Am I correct in thinking that this will be okay.

She will not be liable for IHT and as she is well and healthy and there is no reason to believe she will need care in the future so this should not be considered as Deprivation of assets! Am I correct?? TIA.

xylophone

Depravitation of assets!

Deprivation?

She may well be healthy and independent now and even if she grows frailer, may only need some assistance in her sheltered flat.

However, at her age, having given away half the sale proceeds of her property is likely to come under scrutiny if she ever does require means tested care.

Perhaps a rather more modest gift to each of her children would be the wiser option?

DigForVictory

+1 for we can't see the future but we have seen councils demanding gifts back & half the estate is a fair wad.

Better to aim a little lower now, and make regular gifts of the £3k a year sort than be unpleasantly startled amidst a tsunami of emotion if her health suddenly goes sideways.

Browntoa

Another vote for deprivation of assets

Any scrutiny of her finances would question the transfer of large amounts of money

Keep_pedalling

You don’t mention any other assets, does she have any?

Olawat

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

You don’t mention any other assets, does she have any?

No she doesn't.

onwards&upwards

Do you even want to take £20,000 from your very elderly mother?

If she’s in good health she could live another decade or more, but at 88 that could change in a heartbeat just by slipping on a wet leaf.

I’d encourage to spend what she wants, maybe have a holiday if she fancies, pay for some luxuries or services to make life easier/nicer and leave the rest because she might be be glad it’s there one day.

Olawat

onwards&upwards wrote: »

Do you even want to take £20,000 from your very elderly mother?

If she’s in good health she could live another decade or more, but at 88 that could change in a heartbeat just by slipping on a wet leaf.

I’d encourage to spend what she wants, maybe have a holiday if she fancies, pay for some luxuries or services to make life easier/nicer and leave the rest because she might be be glad it’s there one day.

My mother has a very comfortable life thank you. She doesn't want for anything! It is she that wants to gift the money so she can see her offspring enjoy it unlike the time when she is no longer here!. I'm just enquiring to see if it is the right thing to do.

onwards&upwards

Olawat wrote: »

My mother has a very comfortable life thank you. She doesn't want for anything! It is she that wants to gift the money so she can see her offspring enjoy it unlike the time when she is no longer here!. I'm just enquiring to see if it is the right thing to do.

Sorry, it isn’t.

A smaller gift maybe, a token, but not such huge amounts.

Keep_pedalling

Olawat wrote: »

My mother has a very comfortable life thank you. She doesn't want for anything! It is she that wants to gift the money so she can see her offspring enjoy it unlike the time when she is no longer here!. I'm just enquiring to see if it is the right thing to do.

I can understand her wanting to do that, we have done the same to enable our children to get on the property ladder and allowed 2 new mums not to have to go back to work in the early years, but giving away 50% of a quite modest sum is risky.

Chances are she will never need long term residential care but if she does this would probably be treated of DDoA, so maybe consider smaller gifts and keeping back a larger emergency fund. Many women of her generation have children who are far better of financially than they are, if that is the case here I personally would turn down the gift.

Tom99

Presumably she has an income from pensions more than enough to live on including maybe increases in rent over the years.
If the three children are in need of the money now I can see why she would want to do this but if the children do not need the money and its just being shifted from one savings pot to another then maybe not such a good idea.
Whatever she decides make sure she gets as much interest as possible on her savings maybe with a bit of 'help' from one of the children using the internet.