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The 'Great Wealth Transfer' - in practice

Journalist: Hereward Mills, FT Adviser

ended 04. August 2026

Advisers,  

I’m interested in the question of intergenerational wealth transfer, or the ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ - and what that actually means in practice for clients and advisers. 

I would be very grateful if you could answer any of the following, and better still provide any anonymised examples of specific clients interactions. 

  • How, and at what stage of their lives, are clients passing on wealth? Has that changed over the course of your career?
  • What are clients most commonly helping younger generations with? Are you seeing more support for house deposits, education costs, childcare, business ventures or day-to-day living expenses?
  • What is driving the shift towards passing on wealth earlier in life? Is it primarily inheritance tax planning, a desire to see family benefit while they are still alive, or the financial pressures facing younger generations?
  • What are the biggest challenges clients face when passing on wealth? How do clients balance helping children and grandchildren today with maintaining their own financial security and treating family members fairly?

Best, 

Hereward 

8 responses from the Newspage community

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Riz Malik
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
Clients are increasingly concerned about wealth transfers and divorce, especially with upcoming inheritance tax changes. Breakups can dilute the family's wealth, so they are looking for more creative ways to ensure the silver stays in the family if they plan to give with a warm hand rather than a cold one.
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Graham Nicoll
Financial Planner, Chartered FCSI at NCL Wealth Partners
The biggest shift I've seen is that clients increasingly want to see the benefit of their wealth during their lifetime rather than simply passing it on through their estate.

Smaller, regular gifts from surplus income are becoming more common, often funding Junior ISAs or pensions for children or grandchildren, allowing investments to grow over many years.

Larger gifts are typically linked to key life events such as house deposits, education, weddings or helping children start a business.

We're also seeing greater use of trusts, where appropriate, to move future growth outside the estate while retaining some flexibility.

The challenge is always balance: helping younger generations when support has the greatest impact, without undermining their financial independence or compromising the parents' own long-term financial security and retirement plans.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Managing Director & IFA at Mather and Murray Financial
The Great Wealth Transfer is not just about older generations dying with assets- it is increasingly about families trying to solve today’s affordability crisis while everyone is still alive. Many clients in their 60s and 70s have benefited from decades of house price growth, final salary pensions and long bull markets. Their children may have good jobs, but still face brutal housing costs, childcare bills, student debt and squeezed disposable incomes. That changes the conversation from “what will they inherit?” to “what do they need now?” We are seeing more lifetime gifting for deposits, school fees, nursery costs and even basic breathing space. The challenge is doing it without creating a retirement shortfall, family resentment or a tax mess. Good advice is often less about clever planning and more about stress-testing generosity before the cheque is written.
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Harvey Dhillon
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
Give away more than £325,000 in the seven years before you die and, on HMRC's guidance, the tax on those gifts falls on the people who received them, not on your estate. The threshold has not moved since 2009 and will not until 2031. House prices have. Index it. Ask what is driving earlier giving and the honest answer is not tax planning. In HMRC's 2019 gifting research, 45 per cent of gifters knew the inheritance tax rules when they made their largest gift, 8 per cent said the rules influenced it, and 1 per cent said they would not have given it otherwise. People give because a child needs the money now. The tax turns up later, and it turns up at the child. So the challenge is not balance, it is evidence. Gifts out of income are exempt only "if, or to the extent that, it is shown" that the giving was normal, came from income and left enough to live on, and page 8 of form IHT403 asks the executor to show it, year by year. The gift takes a minute. The evidence has to outlive you.
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Paul Denley
CEO at Oakham Wealth Management
The old model - wealth passing at death through a will - is fading. Clients increasingly gift in their 60s and 70s, recognising that money is worth more to a child at 35 than at 65. House deposits still dominate, followed by school fees and childcare. Tax plays a part - particularly with pensions now in the IHT crosshairs - but the bigger driver is emotional: people want to see the difference their wealth makes while they're still here. The challenge is discipline. We stress test every gift against the client's own longevity and care needs, and fairness between siblings is a conversation to have before money moves, not after. Our role is to ensure today's generosity doesn't become tomorrow's regret.
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Matt Coulson
Founder at Heron Financial Ltd
For most families, the great wealth transfer is arriving earlier than it used to, at the point a child buys a home, not when a parent dies. The affordability squeeze has pulled it forward a generation: the help is needed now, not in thirty years. It usually starts with a gifted deposit, but the mortgage market has moved well beyond that. Parents now join the mortgage through joint borrower sole proprietor deals so their income lifts what a child can borrow, or use offsets where their savings cut the child's interest without being handed over. That distinction is where advisers earn their keep. A gifted deposit is gone for good and touches the parent's retirement and estate, whereas an offset or JBSP can help without permanently parting with the money. The wider shift is that support need not mean a large cash gift, which broadens who can realistically help. The job is matching the method to the family, not just deciding whether to give.
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Jess Best
Independent Financial Planner at McLaren Capital
I am seeing an increasing trend of clients wanting to make significant gifts to their grown-up children to give them a head start, so that they can see their children enjoy the money they are being gifted, rather than it being gifted upon death when their children are much older and fully financially independent. Often these conversations arise at pre-retirement planning, where a client may be in their early 60s, wanting to help their children onto the property ladder, pay for their wedding or both. Here we're getting the bespoke balance of estate planning and retirement planning, relative to their circumstances.
We are seeing millions move between generations and keeping it within the bloodline is becoming more and more important. I have been working hand-in-hand with solicitors and families with an increasing prevalence of parental requests for pre-nuptial agreements before any wealth transfers too.
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Matthew Fleming-Duffy
Founder at Harbour Home Finance Ltd
Over the years I've definitely seen an increase in parents and grandparents wanting to provide financial support during their lifetime rather than waiting until death. As a later life finance adviser, many of my enquiries involve clients accessing their housing wealth through a lifetime mortgage as part of an early inheritance strategy. The FCA recognises housing wealth as a potential fourth pillar of retirement funding, alongside state, workplace and personal pensions, and many clients see it as a practical way to help the next generation. Gift sizes also appear to have increased, probably reflecting higher property prices, larger deposit requirements and wider cost of living pressures. In my experience, frequently the motivation is less about inheritance tax and more about seeing children and grandchildren benefit while they are still alive, so long as they can do so without compromising their own financial security or having to sell their home to access their property wealth.