Should you help your child get on the housing ladder? It’s a dilemma more and more parents face as house prices spiral — and their answers can trigger huge tensions

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As housing costs rise inexorably, young people are increasingly turning to the Bank of Mum and Dad to get on the property ladder, with one million under-30s being unable to afford to buy a home over the past decade. Here, four writers reveal whether or not they’ve helped their children become first-time buyers . . . 

Writer and broadcaster Jenni Murray, 64, lives in London and the Peak District. She has two sons: Ed, 31, a vet, and Charlie 27, a photojournalist. She says:

On the day I graduated in French and Drama from Hull University in 1972, my father announced: ‘Right love, you’re on your own now.’ And I knew he meant it.

Broadcaster Jenni Murray and her son Charlie. She says her sons have good jobs, work hard and live in perfectly adequate rented accommodation

My mother, a town hall receptionist, and my father, an electrical engineer, had denied themselves for years to support me and expand my horizons.

I’d had speech and drama lessons and horse riding every Saturday. They’d saved up for school trips and had done everything they could to make sure I never went without.

Dad’s earnings meant I wasn’t eligible for the full grant at university, so they made up the shortfall.

Fees, in those days, were paid by the state. If they’d had to be paid by my parents, I doubt I would have made it, because they couldn’t have afforded it and wouldn’t have wanted me to be saddled with debt.

With Charlie as a baby. Jenni has treated her children with the same tough love approach that her parents used with her

‘Neither borrower nor lender be’ was their mantra.

I’ve been able to do a little more for my boys, helping them out during those costly university years, buying them cars when they passed their test and, like my parents, supporting foreign travel and extra curricular activities.

But I won’t be giving my sons money to buy a house because, like my father, I believe children must, at some point, become independent and take responsibility for their own lives.

Yes, things are more expensive now than when I was starting out, but it was a struggle then, too. This generation has to learn, as I did, that luxury doesn’t fall into your lap.

I earn a reasonable amount of money and have two homes — but only because for a long time I’ve worked in London and Manchester, and neither house is worth the astronomical sums you hear about in some parts of London. The boys, of course, will inherit them some day.

I think my greatest concern about this trend for subsidising the accommodation of one’s offspring is the impact it will have on the older generation.

I think this is my time. I’ve worked hard to support my children, our pensions are not providing the income we thought they would, and I have no intention of living in poverty, should the time come when I’m unable to earn a living.

Thus far my sons have good jobs, work hard and live in perfectly adequate rented accommodation. They’ve never asked for a penny and I think they’re proud and decent young men who don’t expect subsidy.

Maybe, one day, if they’re struggling to find space to accommodate my grandchildren, my naturally parsimonious Yorkshire instinct will be overcome by a gurgling infant. We’ll see!

Buying a house with no help from my parents was a character-building experience and I want my boys to have the same opportunity. To their credit, they’ve never asked for help.

I have never been more proud than the day I invited my parents to the first house I owned in Lymington on the edge of the New Forest — a two-up, two-down overlooking the sea.

Dad worried about the mortgage with which I’d saddled myself, as he put it. It was £10,000 — not a lot now, but a phenomenal sum in the mid-Seventies, and I’d battled to get it.

My first building society application had got the response: ‘Only if you have a signature from a husband or father — not for a single woman.’

It was the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 that enabled me to get it as a feme sole — the legal term for a woman alone.

I always knew, if I was on Skid Row, Dad would be there to help and I think my sons know the same. But only in true desperation.

It’s called Tough Love!’

Linda Kelsey, 62, lives in London. She has one son, Thomas, 26, who works in IT. She says:

Linda Kelsey has signed a joint lease with joint mortgage responsibility on an airy new-build property in Bow with her son Tom

Five months ago — after viewing dozens of slum flats in East London priced at well over £250,000 for one bedroom — my son Tom and I signed a joint lease with joint mortgage responsibility on an airy new-build property in Bow.

If the upside is that I have helped my son get onto the property ladder, the downside is that in my 60s I have stretched myself far more than I would have liked.

After my divorce six years ago, I downsized from a family home to a smaller house in a less desirable part of North London, taking out a considerable mortgage in the process.

As my ex-husband and I had paid off the mortgage on our joint property, I certainly hadn’t envisaged taking on a new mortgage for myself in my 50s, let alone a second a few years later to assist my son.

But there was no way Tom could get a big enough mortgage to buy in Central London on his own, so my help seemed to be the only solution — even if this meant that at the age of 62 I had to cash in savings policies to give him a deposit.

My hope is that in a few years’ time my son will be earning a sufficient salary to take on the entire debt himself.

As for the property I live in, I will have to downsize again if I can’t pay off what I owe by the time I’m 70 and the mortgage term comes to an end.

If my anxiety about my future has somewhat increased, my concern for my son’s is somewhat abated.

I’m no martyr, but I do feel it is my duty to help him — just as my parents helped me buy a flat in my early 20s, when I first married.

Their generosity made me determined to repay them — not literally, but by working hard, saving when I could and proving myself financially responsible. I’ve no doubt my son will do the same.

Linda with Tom as a child. She says she feels it is her duty as a mother to help him but hopes he will be able to take on the financial responsibility of a home

Liz Hodgkinson, 70, lives in Oxfordshire. She is divorced and has two sons: Tom, 46, who runs a philosophical academy, and Will, 44, a writer. She says:

At the age of 34, my younger son, Will, decided he would like to buy a London property, but he soon discovered that everything was beyond his budget, even a tiny one-bedroom flat.

He was married with two small children and I was worried how they would manage with no home of their own.

Liz Hodgkinson with her younger son Will. She sold her home so that he would have somehwere to live with his young family

At the time, finally back on my feet after my divorce from my sons’ father, I had no retirement fund to raid, and no savings.

The only way I could help Will was if I sold my small but valuable three-bedroom terrace in West Kensington, London, and moved to my tiny holiday flat in Worthing, West Sussex.

I had lived in London for 36 years, and the thought of leaving horrified me. My ex-husband couldn’t help out, as he had given most of his money to the spiritual retreat centre where he had gone to live in 1994, and had nothing left for his sons.

So it all had to come from me, even if I had to sell my home in order to do it.

Will’s need was desperate, so, after much soul-searching, I put my lovely house on the market.

Luckily, I found a cash buyer instantly and told Will I would give him £50,000 if he matched it with his own savings.

To his credit, he managed to find the money.

In the end, Will’s wife found a grotty Seventies ex-council house in insalubrious Peckham, South-East London.

Just over nine years later, they are still there, financially more secure and having greatly extended and improved the place. Their two small children are now hulking teenagers.

As for me, I sold the holiday flat two years later as it was really too small for a main home, and bought an apartment in Oxford.

So that was two house moves in order to help my sons — well, one of them, anyway. For while I gave my son Will £50,000, his older brother, Tom, received nothing.

When I helped Will, Tom already had a house in Shepherd’s Bush, bought with money his wife had been given. And even though I promised to leave him the very sum I’d given Will in my will, he has never let me forget that I gave his brother money and not him.

‘Oh great,’ he said at the time. ‘The way you’re going, I’ll be in my 60s or 70s by the time I get that!

‘And in any case, what about the interest? What will £50,000 be worth in 20 or 30 years’ time?’

Nowadays, Will has a good steady job and Tom, although high-profile, is struggling to turn his business into profit.

I know he keeps thinking, ‘50 grand, 50 grand, 50 grand that Will got and I didn’t’, and as he often mentions it, it obviously rankles.

He regularly asks me if I will help with his children’s school fees, or invest in his business to make up for it, but I always refuse — I simply don’t have the money to help both of them.

Angela Neustatter, 71, lives in North London with her husband, Olly, a film technician. She has two sons: Sam, 39, a teacher, and James, 34, a charity worker. She says:

My husband Olly and I had only just finished renovating our dream home — a large building in North London which was derelict when we moved in — when we found ourselves worrying about how we could help our sons buy homes of their own.

Angela Neustatter and her husband Olly. They had only just finished renovating their dream home when they found themselves worrying about how they could help our sons buy homes of their own

Sam, a teacher, and James, a charity worker, were in their 20s and both had good jobs. But even tiny apartments in the least desirable areas of London were out of their reach.

Olly and I both worked freelance, and while our income provided enough for us to live on, there was nothing left over.

We didn’t even have enough money to help them put down a deposit on a property, let alone buy them anything straight out, as some parents do.

The only way we could help them would be to sell up our beloved home, downsize, and use the money left over.

But it was a heartbreaking idea when we had only just got our home as we wanted it after years of living in a building site.

It would also mean letting go of our pension pot, for we had always planned to sell off the bottom section of the house as a maisonette and use the money we received for it to support ourselves in our dotage.

Yet, on balance, we decided that our children’s security was ultimately more important than our financial future. We decided to sell the maisonette bottom half of our building and use the funds to help Sam and James.

They each bought a flat in West London for around £300,000 — a quarter of which came from us. The boys were happy, liked their homes, and we still had two floors of living space to ourselves.

Then, to our amazement, about six years later, Sam asked if he might come back to live on one of the floors in our house.

It was not the usual boomerang story. He was in his early 30s, married, and his wife was pregnant. Her parents lived abroad, and she wanted to be near family when she had the baby.

The idea came as a shock to us. We had got used to having the place to ourselves, and what Sam and his wife suggested would mean yet more downsizing for us.

But we were classic empty-nesters who loved it when our kids were around, so the idea seemed worth considering.

Sam explained that he would rent out his own flat and use the money he received to pay household bills and help with repairs to the building. And there was even talk of them helping to care for us in later life — a contribution which seemed better than rent.

We knew that the rent from his flat would help Sam and his wife support their new baby, and so we chose to see it as a happy opportunity.

We couldn’t be happier with the way things have worked out. We keep our living quarters quite separate within the family home — privacy is all-important to every one of us. But it is wonderfully easy for our four-year-old granddaughter, Jessie, to slip upstairs for playtime most days.

As for other son, James, he is still single and still delighted with the flat we helped him buy all those years ago.

I’m delighted that we were able to help our sons buy their first home, and feel terribly sad that things are so difficult for those young people whose parents aren’t in such a fortunate position.