Are you thinking of helping a family member buy their first home or have you already helped them? Share your experience - £200 voucher to be won.

Yes, helped both DD. Rather give money when they need rather than as an inheritance

My husband and I paid for our children’s education and they all went to university. Hence we were not in a financial position to give help when they bought houses. However they subsequently all have had excellent careers and were able to finance the buying of their own houses.

I wish I could have my children more but I just don't have the money. I've saved up and have managed to give my daughter £1000 but I know it's not much

A lot of thought and help is given to helping our younger family members buy their first house. I find myself now thinking about the help we can give them towards their retirement.

Most of us are more long-lived than we were. GN members in their 60s and 70s often talk about at least one parent alive and often fit, well into their 90s.

With occupational pension schemes now few and far between, perhaps what we should be thinking about how much we can leave our children when we die to enable them to have a comfortable retirement.

Our retirement has been made much more comfortable because we inherited money from our parents in our 50s and 60s as we moved towards retirement

We are saving up to help our niece as she is buying he rown home, we want to get her £1000 towards it

I seem to be the odd one out. We helped our children out when they were at university, paying their rents and tuition fees. They’re all close in age so at one stage we were paying out for 3 rents and our own mortgage, and only kept afloat by juggling interest free loans and credit cards.

Since then they’ve all managed to buy homes nicer than ours by their own efforts, and none of them have asked for or needed our help. If they’d asked, we would of course have done what we could.

When my parents retired in the 90's, they wanted to buy their rented home. As I was in a position to help I gave them 10K over three years.

We have been fortunate to have been able to help all of our children with their deposits.

I loaned my second cousin the money for a deposit on a house when her mother (my cousin) died. Her parents had divorced and her Dad took the money from the Life Insurance Policies (he had re-married), so she was left homeless! Her older brother was married and renting a home, so not in need at that time.

I helped my son and his partner to buy a home as they were living in a dark gloomy flat and just had a baby.
Alex is an only child and would have got his inheritance later on in life.
I just wanted my grand daughter to have a nice place to live
They actually bought my parents old house with the deposit I gave them
Plus an inheritance from sister.
I think it was a great thing to do

Unfortunately, we are Not in a position to help our 2 children. But when my daughter's marriage didn't go ahead 15 years ago we gave Her the money we'd saved for the wedding + she got a flat on half ownership - mortgage + pay rent on the other half. So when my son after years in housing association with his partner, wanted A house of their own, her parents gave them a deposit which is to be repaid at 200 pounds a month for x number of years. Interesting.

My grandson has worked full time since 16, he's now 23 and he and his partner are about to move into a housing association property, but they need to undergo many financial checks first. Its so different to what it used to be. No way near as easy.
I doubt any of my grandchildren will have their foot on the ladder of home ownership for many years yet thanks to the fact that housing is in short supply here, plus its so expensive. But the plus side is we live in a beautiful area, so you take the rough with the smooth.

They make it too hard for youngsters these days though.

We have helped both dds with outright gifts, and feel very fortunate to have been able to do so.

Dd1 and her future dh actually refused help when buying their first house, which I admired in them. However some 3 years and a baby later, they wanted a somewhat nicer area with a better primary school catchment.

In the meantime prices had shot up, so while they made a profit on their house, the differential been theirs and ‘a bit bigger and nicer’ had widened quite a lot, so they were very grateful for the help we could offer.

Yes, I helped both of my daughters with a combination of loans and gifts. As I can afford I shall write off the loans. They do not know this as I think it’s important for them to not expect money to be handed to them on a plate

We helped our daughter with a deposit when she was buying her first home with her partner. It helped them considerably as they would have struggled without help.

Our son still lives with us and has a full-time job, but his salary isn't enough to pay a deposit on a home. We have offered to give him the deposit, but at present (as a single person), he hasn't found anything suitable.

As we have always been savers and have enough money for our own needs, we didn't have any real concerns about helping our children. We just wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to get on the housing ladder.

I don't have children or grandchildren, and rent myself because I can't afford to buy and maintain a property

We have offered a modest amount to help our DS and DDIL to get onto the property ladder. The amount is modest so that we can help our younger two DC when it is their turn.

We are very committed to helping our daughter (20) and grandchildren from another child in the future and have already started plans to do this. We are in the process of purchasing a small 2nd holiday property by remortgaging part of the house we live in, we are hoping that the equity will grow in our 2nd property and by the time our daughter is ready to purchase her own we will then be able to sell it & have a nice contribution to our daughters deposit.

Yes we have helped all 3 of our children with house purchase. For a long time I thought they should all have the same but during Covid my daughter needed major help to get her out of a flat with no garden into a house with a garden. My other two children raised no objection and were happy for her and her family.

We helped both our children to buy houses, giving them the option of money towards a wedding or a house - and both chose the latter. We were also lucky enough to be in a financial position to help them take a step further up the property ladder a few years later when their families started to grow. We started off our married life with nothing, and have built up our financial reserves through sheer hard work and not wasting money; we feel as if we would rather give money to our children than to the taxman - and while we are alive to see them take advantage of it, rather than after we've gone! One problem linked to this issue (which friends have experienced) is when you help your child to buy a house with a partner, and the relationship ends. That can cause huge problems - so it's best to have a proper legal contract to secure any money you have invested in your child's property and prevent a financially and emotionally unpleasant potential situation later.

I helped both my children to buy homes in 2018. I was lucky to be loaned £1000 by my dad back in the 1970s which enabled me to get on the property ladder. My dad was working abroad for a couple of years and I was able to repay the loan plus interest on his return. I have also inherited money from grandparents which helped my move to a bigger property.
I have therefore felt it only right that if I was in a position to do so, I would help my children withe their respective house purchases. It is lovely to be able to see them benefit from the money now rather than after my death.
It will also reduce any inheritance tax due and reduce any liability I might have to contribute to care costs in the future.
But, I am very aware that I am fortunate to be able to help them will little impact on ky own day to day finances

Yes we helped our son by providing deposit on their first house. They had been saving for their wedding and renting a small town house, which they had been told was an investment for the owners retirement, then 3 mths before the wedding the owner decided he was moving abroad and wanted to sell and would offer them first refusal. They tried to look for other properties to rent in their price range but couldn’t find anything. My husband was retiring in 6 mths and would get a lump sum so we took out a short loan and gave them the deposit.

Set up a savings a/c for my daughter . She chose not to go to uni . When she was still living at home and paying keep , put that into the savings as well. When she wanted to buy her own home , she had a good deposit from the savings.

We have gifted all three of our children a substantial amount of money towards their first house purchases otherwise they would still be saving to get on the property ladder.

We have helped all of ours. They are now well established and, only last week, one of them refused to let me pay for something I had asked him to buy because we can given him such a good start in helping him to buy a house