Inheriting More Than Wealth: Woman Uncovers Hidden Secrets While Grappling with Unfinished Wishes of Her Late Father
At some point this year, £100bn ($133bn) – or more than half the annual budget of the National Health Service (NHS) – could be changing hands every year, according to an analysis commissioned by estate administrators the Kings Court Trust. By 2047, they estimate, that number could more than triple.
Around £5.5tn ($7.3tn) in total could flow down through families over the next 30 years, both in conventional legacies and increasingly in living gifts, which don’t attract inheritance tax if the donor survives for seven years after handing them over.
Image credits: Image by Freepik (not the actual photo)
The sums involved in the great wealth transfer are so high partly because the Boomers make up so much of the population – roughly a fifth.
As The Guardian’s columnist Gaby Hinsliff points out, it’s always been perfectly normal for older people to be richer than younger ones, having had a lifetime to accumulate property, pensions, and savings. But what has happened to those assets over a generation is unusual. House prices tripled in real terms between 1980 and 2020, and even a council house bought through Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy can be worth seven figures in some London areas.
One in four pensioner households is now worth over £1m on paper, even if they’re not cash-rich. Now, this windfall is heading down to the next generation – or to some of them – and the partitions are expected to cause tension. More money, more problems, as they say.
When the Joseph Rowntree Foundation conducted research into attitudes toward legacies back in 2005, it found two-thirds of those potentially wealthy enough to leave something weren’t worried about organizing their finances to do so and just wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
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