Keeping it in the family can apply to mortgages

BUYING a first home is an enormous challenge for many younger people, who struggle to save for a deposit or to find a lender confident in their ability to meet high monthly payments.

They’re not the only people who worry. Many parents fear their children will be unable to get on the property ladder, and often feel obliged to help out financially.

An obvious response is to say that the nation must build more homes, but this is already happening.The price of housing remains high, and there’s little prospect of that changing.

It means we need to consider imaginative ways of helping people to buy, such as the Government’s proposal for long-term mortgages which could be passed from one generation to the next.

A 50-year mortgage would allow buyers to purchase a dream home with enough space for all the family, paying back the loan at a pace they can afford.

The next generation may not entirely relish the idea of inheriting the debt, but this would happen once they inherited the property and the equity that goes with it. On balance, it would mean that wealth was passed on between generations.

Multi-generational households, where adult children live with their parents, and sometimes children of their own, would benefit from such arrangements.

Helping children to own a home is increasingly the dream of every parent, and long-term mortgages would make this goal more achievable. It would also provide much-needed help for younger people who are unable or unwilling to access the bank of mum and dad.