My wife Jasmine and I got our first home because of a discount. Jasmine had a council flat and under a scheme called Right to Buy could purchase it at a reduced price, which essentially did the job a deposit normally does.
We bought it, lived there and later sold it and moved somewhere bigger. Every subsequent move and every bit of security our family has, traces back to that one transaction.
Since then, I’ve spent many years talking about level playing fields, social mobility and giving people a fair chance. With property and with my university education, I was offered a supportive hand by the state and grabbed it with both hands. I would do the same tomorrow.
Years later and many people are still relying on support to buy their first home – the question is who offers it.
The Right to Buy door is now all but shut. In November 2024, the maximum cash discount through the scheme was cut from £102,400 (or £136,400 in London) to somewhere between £16,000 and £38,000, depending on where you live.
A bill going through Parliament right now would go further, raising the qualifying period from three years to 10, and starting the discount at 5 per cent of a property’s value. Scotland scrapped the scheme entirely in 2016 and Wales in 2019.
You can have your own view on whether it’s right or not, and there’s a serious argument for both sides. More than two million social homes have left public hands since 1980, and around four in 10 of those are now rented out privately.
But whatever you think of the policy, it’s important to know what it means for somebody aspiring to get on the ladder today. The rungs I climbed are no longer there.
These days, more than half of first-time buyers (53 per cent) get help from family. Gifts and loans from relatives came to £8.3bn in 2025 alone. That’s an expensive house-warming gift!
Those who get this help typically buy their first home at 26 rather than 30, according to the Bank of England. They pay on average £254,000. Those with no help waited until they were 37 to buy something worth the same.
I will help my children where I can. Of course I will; every instinct a parent has dictates it, and refusing on principle won’t fix the housing market. It would just keep my kids renting, paying someone else’s mortgage, while someone else’s child gets their first set of door keys.
To any parent about to do the same, I would say this: help them with your eyes open, because a lot of people are hurting themselves in the process.
Research for Legal & General found that 74 per cent of people making a significant financial gift to support their children took no professional guidance at all. If you want to release equity from your home, the rules require you to take regulated advice first. If you want to hand over your life savings, nobody stops you and nobody asks you a single question.
So, here are four things you need to know before you open up the cheque book and bank accounts.
Sort your own future before you sort theirs
With retirement hopefully on the horizon sooner rather than later, your pension is not a rainy day account with young Freddie’s flat attached.
When over-45s were asked this year what held them back from giving, the biggest answer was the fear of running out of money later on. That is not an irrational fear.
Is it a gift or loan?
Decide and document it. Lenders treat the two completely differently, and a vague family arrangement uncovered partway through a mortgage application can sink the whole thing.
If you expect the money back at some point, say so.
Understand the tax implications
Gifts can still count towards your estate for inheritance tax if you die within seven years of making them, and from April 2027 most unused pension money will sit inside the estate too.
The Budget on 28 October could bring further changes, so keep an eye out.
Take guidance
MoneyHelper is free, impartial and government-backed, and for anything large or complicated, regulated advice is worth what it costs.
And if you have not got money to give, you have not failed your children. A spare room for a couple of years, rent free or close to it, is one of the largest gifts a parent can make. But like the late-night pick-ups from the train station when they’ve been out or the home-cooked meals, they don’t show up in any of the official figures.
I got my leg-up from a government scheme that has since been cut back to a fraction of what it was. I’ve paid back into the system and my children will get their leg up from me, my wife and their grandparents.
A leg-up onto the property ladder has long been needed. I am grateful to be in a position to experience both types. The difference is that only one of these leg-ups was ever available to everybody’s children.