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.

I don’t have anything to give them at the moment but hope to downsize in a couple of years and I will give them each some money then. I expect ds2 will have bought by then as he has a deposit saved and would have bought by now if it hadn’t been for Covid. Hopefully it will let the others with a deposit.

Think I may have commented previously on another thread, but yes when my daughters wedding got cancelled before it was going ahead on the day, so we gave her the money that had been saved up for wedding + she managed to get a half ownership flat which you still need a deposit then its a mortage + rent on other half with housing company association, but sadly we are now not in a position to help out our son, as last year he moved into first house as luckily his partner's parents gave them a deposit - but "with strings attached" - that it has to be paid back each month to them for the next 5 years, but at least they now have a house rather than a rented flat.

We helped our three children with the deposit on their first homes and now they all have nice houses so I am glad we did this. Now the grandchildren are growing up and are looking to buy their own places and everything is so expensive nowadays so I think will be doing the same for them helping them to get on the property ladder.

Yes I helped our son and young family to upgrade to a bigger home but within my very limited resources, as I only have my state pension and modest savings! I just wish I'd been able to do more as things are so much tougher for this generation than they were in my day when finances seemed to be much easier.

We gave £2000 each towards house deposits (as did the other inlaw parents), to my 2 much older children when they bought their first houses 20 and 16 years ago. By the time the youngest was ready to buy with her partner earlier this year we were far better off and as we’d saved her child benefit from day one by investing in a stocks and shares ISA, she got £22,000. The fund grew massively.

We helped our dd but had to sign a form from her solicitor I think, to say it was given freely as a gift and not a loan, we signed but I wasn’t expecting that because initially it was a loan.

I helped all three. My (now ex) husband’s attitude was that ‘we had to struggle, why shouldn’t they? ‘. Taking no account of the tremendous increase in prices since we bought our first tiny flat. But I inherited a sum of money from my mother, had the inheritance diverted to the children and that along with their savings enabled them each to get a mortgage. They all work as hard as they are able while bringing up my beautiful grandchildren so it was lovely to be able to do it and my husband couldn’t make it difficult for me.

I helped my daughter and son-in-law buy their first home. They had lived in rented accommodation for a few years and were desperately trying to save at the same time, both have student loans to pay back and I could see they really were struggling even though they never complained. So I cashed in my pension early and gave them the rest of the deposit that they needed. They argued initially and kept saying they would only take it as a loan but i said they must take it as a gift….”getting their inheritance early”!

My eldest daughter is in a good financial position but I wish I could help my youngest who currently lives with her husband and child in a house that I own. They pay a peppercorn rent and can't afford more which means they may never get on the property ladder, and means I am also financially strapped but at least have peace of mind knowing they have a decent-ish home to live in. I am fortunate that my husband (not the girls' father) supports me and my decision and I live in his home.

We helped both our children by assisting with a deposit as well as giving back to them the rent they had paid while living at home. They never knew we had saved this for them and were both very grateful.

Both moved in with partners and their partners parents also helped. Without this help they would not have been able to buy and would have had to carry on paying extortionate rents (London).

Both couples also took full advantage of the help to buy savings schemes available.

For both couples their mortgage, bills etc are now less than the rent they were paying.

All the form filling and identifying where we had and how we had the money was a nightmare.

My sister in law is a single parent of two boys and has just been given notice to leave from her landlord. We are her only hope of getting on the housing ladder so we are going to help. She is also using the help to buy scheme from the Government. I do have some concerns about the future and what will happen if she can’t afford the payments and also how we will manage with less money? I will also help my daughter buy her first house but luckily that is a few years away yet! We have had some difficult conversations as it involves family and I’m glad of all the sensible and unbiased advice that Santander has provided.