At what age should my children inherit?

Eighteen is the default, it is rarely the answer, and choosing something else is an ordinary decision rather than a judgement on your children.

If you do nothing, the answer is eighteen. Property left to a minor is held for them until they reach majority and then handed over in a single sum. Almost nobody who thinks about it for five minutes wants that, and almost everybody who has not thought about it has chosen it.

Two decisions, often confused

Guardianship is who raises your children. Trusteeship is who manages what you leave them. They are frequently the same person, and there is no rule that they must be. The sister who is the obvious person to raise your children is not automatically the obvious person to manage a house and a portfolio for the next fourteen years, and saying so is not an insult to her.

The shapes people actually choose

• Staged. A third at twenty-five, a third at thirty, the rest at thirty-five. The first share arrives late enough to be survivable and early enough to teach something before the rest lands.
• Held for a purpose. The trustee pays for education, health, a first home, or a business, with discretion over the rest. Slower to administer, harder to waste.
• Held for life. Used where a child has a disability, a creditor problem, or a marriage the family would rather the inheritance stayed out of. This is where a special needs trust belongs if benefits are in the picture.

One pot or separate shares

While the children are young, a single fund the trustee can spend according to need often works better than equal shares — a fourteen-year-old with four years of school left and a five-year-old with seventeen do not have equal needs. Most plans keep one pot until the youngest reaches a set age, then divide what is left.

Say why

Whatever you choose, write down the reasoning, even informally. A staged distribution reads very differently to a twenty-two-year-old who knows their parents thought about it than to one who is simply told no.