[user104658]

Originally Posted by smudgie

Plenty of people I know have gifted their cash or properties to their kids.
Makes absolute sense, as long as they allow you to carry on living there and don't put you on the street. The council don't take to kindly to it and are not fussed on rehousing you.
The biggest reason nowadays was to stop spending it all on care home fees.

True. Also, technically the money I got when my mum died was a "gift" from my dad. It was money that was in her pension and she intended to be left to me and my sister, as my parents separated 10 years before she died. However, they never finalised a divorce and their "separation agreement" was long expired by then, so although they were still separated, legally they were the same as any married couple, so her pension all went to my dad when she died. He then split it in half and gave the money to me and my sister.

Thinking about it, it's a good thing he's not a total arsehole or he could legally just have kept it ...

That said, transfer of cash and assets before death is technically a "tax dodge". I don't have any moral issue with it exactly as I don't particularly agree with inheritance tax: that money and those assets have already been taxed and really people should be able to leave their worldly goods to their loved ones without the government taking a chunk... BUT if you are involved in politics you really have to play by the rules. Or risk being a hypocrite. You can't be in charge and tell everyone else which rules they must play by, then play by different rules yourself.