Hugo Smith: Helping your clients' children onto the property ladder

Purchases, loans, gifts and guarantees

clock • 4 min read

Hugo Smith considers the tax implications of the various ways parents, in association with their financial advisers, might help their children take a first step onto the property ladder

The Local Government Association recently published a report that found the proportion of 25-year-olds owning their own home has halved in the last 20 years. 25-year-olds today find themselves part of ‘Generation Rent', with the prospect of owning their own home an uphill struggle at best, an impossible dream at worst, as the average house price is now eight times average earnings. The average age of a first-time buyer is now 30 and a first-time buyer in London now needs a deposit of £85,000 before they can even start looking for the first foothold on the property ladder. How then can...

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