Money Moral Dilemma: What's the fairest way to help our children on to the property ladder?

arnoldy

Overall "feeding" adult children on the nipple of family money is usually a bad idea. It allows the kids to live a fraudulent lifestyle - one that they could have never afforded by their own endeavours. That's not "success" It is far better to pass it to them when you go at, say 85, and they are 55 - by then the die is cast and it will be clear what they have succeeded or failed  financially in life.

Spendless

anotheruser said:

Spendless said:

You take into account the children's situations. One might have a very well paid job for example. Being fair to both, isn't always the same as treating them identically.

No, but giving one £100,000 and the other £50,000 isn't treating them identically either.
One could be very lazy and so has a lower paid job, while the other could have really struggled but got to a very well paid position.

The ONLY fair and right way is giving each the same amount.

One may get £20,000 but lives in London.  Their salary may be high but so will the house price.
One may get £200,000 but lives in central Stoke-on-Trent.  Their salary may be low but their house price is lower to match it.

All horses for courses.

It's a gift of money, not a gift of property.
If the children have different salaries and career prospects, that's their own success.

So using that scenario of giving offspring the same amount as only being the fair and right way, let's look at the will of the Mum of the DJ Chris Evans. She left her estate to Chris and his 2 siblings equally, because all 3 were her children and she thought it the 'right' thing to do. I can't remember the exact amount left, but let's say it was £150K total so £50K each but Chris is a multi millionaire and doesn't actually need an additional £50K. His siblings have ordinary jobs and splitting his share might have made more of a difference to them - this is why I say you take each child's situation into account - you also need to talk it through with them. 

Pollycat

arnoldy said:

Overall "feeding" adult children on the nipple of family money is usually a bad idea. It allows the kids to live a fraudulent lifestyle - one that they could have never afforded by their own endeavours. That's not "success" It is far better to pass it to them when you go at, say 85, and they are 55 - by then the die is cast and it will be clear what they have succeeded or failed  financially in life.

Do you really think that 'fraudulent' is the right adjective?

Spendless

@Pollycat - Ages ago on DT there was a MMD. I forget all the details but it was about a camera, A shop had lost it I think but it also said there was no insurance. Of course 95% of the answers said 'should have had insurance'. Then the person who'd submitted the story made an account and told the full details of the story which including the reason why insurance hadn't been possible, which then altered the responses.

Since then I've always been a bit 'held back' about these sort of dilemmas because missing details can change the story. I had a recent MMD of my own concerning a financial transaction we did (not giving money, just helping someone out) and whether we did the right thing. I even considered sending it in, but the background detail that would be needed I knew just wouldn't be posted and the replies would be based on not enough knowledge of the situation. I considered posting it myself but the situation is too identifiable certainly at the minute. It resolved itself this week anyway which concluded my dilemma. 

seven-day-weekend

Spendless said:

anotheruser said:

Spendless said:

You take into account the children's situations. One might have a very well paid job for example. Being fair to both, isn't always the same as treating them identically.

No, but giving one £100,000 and the other £50,000 isn't treating them identically either.
One could be very lazy and so has a lower paid job, while the other could have really struggled but got to a very well paid position.

The ONLY fair and right way is giving each the same amount.

One may get £20,000 but lives in London.  Their salary may be high but so will the house price.
One may get £200,000 but lives in central Stoke-on-Trent.  Their salary may be low but their house price is lower to match it.

All horses for courses.

It's a gift of money, not a gift of property.
If the children have different salaries and career prospects, that's their own success.

So using that scenario of giving offspring the same amount as only being the fair and right way, let's look at the will of the Mum of the DJ Chris Evans. She left her estate to Chris and his 2 siblings equally, because all 3 were her children and she thought it the 'right' thing to do. I can't remember the exact amount left, but let's say it was £150K total so £50K each but Chris is a multi millionaire and doesn't actually need an additional £50K. His siblings have ordinary jobs and splitting his share might have made more of a difference to them - this is why I say you take each child's situation into account - you also need to talk it through with them. 

Chris Evands could have given his siblings his share if he cared that much!

Spendless

seven-day-weekend said:

Spendless said:

anotheruser said:

Spendless said:

You take into account the children's situations. One might have a very well paid job for example. Being fair to both, isn't always the same as treating them identically.

No, but giving one £100,000 and the other £50,000 isn't treating them identically either.
One could be very lazy and so has a lower paid job, while the other could have really struggled but got to a very well paid position.

The ONLY fair and right way is giving each the same amount.

One may get £20,000 but lives in London.  Their salary may be high but so will the house price.
One may get £200,000 but lives in central Stoke-on-Trent.  Their salary may be low but their house price is lower to match it.

All horses for courses.

It's a gift of money, not a gift of property.
If the children have different salaries and career prospects, that's their own success.

So using that scenario of giving offspring the same amount as only being the fair and right way, let's look at the will of the Mum of the DJ Chris Evans. She left her estate to Chris and his 2 siblings equally, because all 3 were her children and she thought it the 'right' thing to do. I can't remember the exact amount left, but let's say it was £150K total so £50K each but Chris is a multi millionaire and doesn't actually need an additional £50K. His siblings have ordinary jobs and splitting his share might have made more of a difference to them - this is why I say you take each child's situation into account - you also need to talk it through with them. 

Chris Evands could have given his siblings his share if he cared that much!

Agreed and he may well have done so. My point is a discussion could have taken place prior to death where the best way forward was suggested.

I had an Aunt with 4 kids. One quite wealthy, the next 2 in professional jobs (Nurse and Teacher) and the youngest struggling. The eldest refused to have anything when their Mum approached them about making a will. I can't remember if his share went to youngest or was split between all 3 of his siblings. But that's what I mean about discussing it first taking each kids situation into account.

TBagpuss

arnoldy said:

Overall "feeding" adult children on the nipple of family money is usually a bad idea. It allows the kids to live a fraudulent lifestyle - one that they could have never afforded by their own endeavours. That's not "success" It is far better to pass it to them when you go at, say 85, and they are 55 - by then the die is cast and it will be clear what they have succeeded or failed  financially in life.

'Fraudulent ' is a very strange way to phrase it.

It's certainly true that if someone gets a gift or inheritance it may well enable them to live a different lifestyle than if they haven't, but it's not fraudulent.  And unless the recipient is claiming to have done it without help or is judging themselves, or being judged, solely on what they have financially it's not really a measure of 'success' either. 

Quite apart from the fact that someone can have a very successful life, and/or be  very good at their job, without it necessarily translating into financial wealth.

I do thin that it is generally helpful for people to learn to be self-reliant and not have everything handed to them on a plate from day one, but I don't think that  if you have children and are able to help them, doing something such as giving them a financial gift to help towards a deposit, when they are already working and saving, is going to cause them to suddenly become feckless or dependent on you. 

Also - by the time they are in their 50s their need for any help is likely to have reduced significantly. If you *can* help earlier, why not? Why force someone to struggle for 20 years when you could give them a helping hand early on when they really need it? 

Mojisola

TBagpuss said:

I do thin that it is generally helpful for people to learn to be self-reliant and not have everything handed to them on a plate from day one, but I don't think that  if you have children and are able to help them, doing something such as giving them a financial gift to help towards a deposit, when they are already working and saving, is going to cause them to suddenly become feckless or dependent on you.

We have very canny adult children who, as older family members used to say 'can get one and sixpence worth out of every shilling'.

It was a pleasure to be able to give a boost to their deposits - it hasn't changed their attitude to money but it does mean that they will pay less mortgage interest over the years and will enable them to be mortgage-free sooner.

Tokmon

Spendless said:

anotheruser said:

Spendless said:

You take into account the children's situations. One might have a very well paid job for example. Being fair to both, isn't always the same as treating them identically.

No, but giving one £100,000 and the other £50,000 isn't treating them identically either.
One could be very lazy and so has a lower paid job, while the other could have really struggled but got to a very well paid position.

The ONLY fair and right way is giving each the same amount.

One may get £20,000 but lives in London.  Their salary may be high but so will the house price.
One may get £200,000 but lives in central Stoke-on-Trent.  Their salary may be low but their house price is lower to match it.

All horses for courses.

It's a gift of money, not a gift of property.
If the children have different salaries and career prospects, that's their own success.

So using that scenario of giving offspring the same amount as only being the fair and right way, let's look at the will of the Mum of the DJ Chris Evans. She left her estate to Chris and his 2 siblings equally, because all 3 were her children and she thought it the 'right' thing to do. I can't remember the exact amount left, but let's say it was £150K total so £50K each but Chris is a multi millionaire and doesn't actually need an additional £50K. His siblings have ordinary jobs and splitting his share might have made more of a difference to them - this is why I say you take each child's situation into account - you also need to talk it through with them. 

It was her money to do how she pleased and if she felt that splitting it equally between them was the right thing to do then how can we say she was wrong?

She likely knows her children's financial situation far better than you do and still decided to split it equally.

Wwillow

Treating your children fairly isn't about treating them equally. We have always told our children that we may not treat you equally but we will always try to treat you fairly.
In order to do that you have to consider all the relevant factors. For example if there are five years between when one child buys a property to when the next one does, you will have to factor in inflation. Another example is looking at what % of the value of the property has been leant. To be fairer would be to give the same % value, but the amounts could be quite different. Another factor is affordability. I wouldn't deem it fair to lend to one in order to make a mortgage affordable but then insist on giving the other an equal amount that means they would forever be challenged to be able to afford the mortgage. Fairness is metered out in more ways than can be valued by money alone. It shouldn't be viewed as the amount of money alone, but on what the money amounts to, to the recipient.