Gifting money to kids

Madeinireland101

Apologies if this is the wrong place but...
i want to to give my kids some money from my estate so that there are in a position to buy a house in the future. Probably about £50k each. I completely understand that these would be sums which could be subject to inheritance tax up to 7 years after the gift has been done. I have no wish to get involved in setting up trusts or anything like that as I completely trust the kids to do the right thing with the money as they are both sensible adults.

How do I properly document such gifts for the benefit of the tax man or whoever else needs to know?
I have seen template letters relating to banks and building society’s when the gift is directly for the purchase of a property by I want to give them the sum such that it MAY be used for a house purchase - up to them. 
If they use for a house purchase sometime in the future I assume the bank is none the wiser or do I need to do another letter at that stage even if the funds are already in their accounts?

Finally - If the child decides in the future that they don’t want the funds and has no need for them - Can they as per a normal gift that I am doing gift it back to me or to one of their siblings as they wish?
Thanks...

ratechaser

Does it need to be done all in one go, and how old are the children now, as I'm thinking just drop feed 9k a year into a JISA for them over the next 5-6 years...?

MK62

AFAIK, you can pretty much give whatever you want to whoever you choose.......there may be IHT implications, and there may be problems if you try to claim benefits or social care etc in the future, but you CAN do it.

If you'd like to "steer" it towards a house purchase, you could look at funding LISAs for them (assuming they don't have one already and assuming they haven't owned a property before)......they'd get a bit of free money added by HMG (at least at the moment).

Madeinireland101

It does does need to be done in one go as one of them could buy a house in the next 6 months and I want to do the same for both. They are  26 and 23 and they both already have LISA’s. The main question is though is how I should properly document as the documentation I have seen seems to be aimed towards a house purchase and is more about evidence that it truly is a gift and not a loan for the benefit of the bank or building society.

Robert_McGeddon

Just write a simple letter to each of them stating you are making a gift. No complexity required.

If you haven't used your £3K p.a. gift allowance under IHT then you could gift this first (£3K to each if you've not used 2019/20) and the balance separately.

Albermarle

It is whoever is the Executor of your estate who will need to know , so they can give an accurate and honest account to HMRC in any IHT calculation. So as above a simple letter , with a copy with your will should suffice. Hopefully you will last another 7 years and it will not be an issue:)