Balancing the lifetime gifts of a parent to their children

bobster2

bobzilla said:

With all due thanks to those who contributed I have now found a book that covers this question in more detail: ‘Beyond the Grave’, especially Chapter 5, it's on Amazon UK ‘Look Inside’. 

The book is by Jeffrey L Condon, an American lawyer and his advice for parents concerned about gifts to their children is to keep them in balance at all times. If not able to do that they should estimate the effects of inflation and appreciation on the values of their gifts and adjust their wills accordingly. 

This confirms my feeling that present values are not immaterial [sorry Daniel54]. I also feel that a wish like this should be applied whether or not written in the will: a deed of variation could be used to make a transfer if it wasn't. Presumably the index used to work out the effects of inflation and appreciation would have to be negotiated within the family.

I've seen some of his advice. He recommends doing as much as you can to balance children's inheritances for the sake of family harmony. But he does not suggest this is easy to do in a will.

Consequently, he recommends that you should do as much as you can to balance/equalize the amount passed on to each child before you die (e.g. through gifts, trusts).

When it comes to the will - you could do the calculations you refer to every few months - rewriting your will each time to account for things like inflation and compound interest. But many people spend some time at the end of their lives when they've lost capacity - and if there are surges in inflation or crashes in markets during that time - all these calculations could get thrown off.

Spendless

I don't even see how this is possible. Example you have 3 kids

Child A - has 2 children, lives where no childcare. You provide it FOC enabling Child A to work until grandkids are old enough to be left alone.

Child B - Has no kids but after a decade or 2 of marriage, reveals they've been a DV victim and have kept quiet. They flee with very little and spend the next 5 years living with you for no or little cost whilst they re-build their life.

Child C - You give £10K to start their own business.

Child A and B - you have given them more in what it would have cost them otherwise than Child C, but that's the only one that's cost you in a one off direct 'hit'.

Would you really favour Child A & B more because of this or try to work out what they cost you when you stepped in and adjust.