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YOUNGER people will enjoy the biggest “inheritance boom” of any post-war generation, but it will be too late to solve the housing crisis and wealth inequality, according to a new report published today.
The Resolution Foundation said assets and riches accumulated by older people would benefit younger generations in years to come.
The think tank said inheritances would double over the next 20 years as so-called baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1965, grow older.
Almost two-thirds of people aged 20 to 35 have parents who own property, which they might expect to get a share of in the future, according to the report.
By contrast, fewer than two in five adults born in the 1930s received an inheritance.
The Foundation said so-called millennials, born between 1981 and 2000, who are yet to get on the housing ladder, are less likely to have property passed on to them.
Even for millennials who can expect an inheritance, this may happen far too late to help them buy their first properties and may be more use for grandchildren’s home ownership, it was claimed.
Based on their parents’ life expectancies, the Foundation estimated that the most common age at which millennials inherit would be 61.
Resolution Foundation senior policy analyst Laura Gardiner said that inheritance is “not the silver bullet” that will get millennials on the housing ladder or will address the inequality gap.
For hundreds of thousands of young people unable to buy a property now, renting a house is also out of reach after a 3 per cent price increase in the past year, a new study revealed yesterday.
Research by credit-report provider Noddle found that average rental deposits across Britain stand at just under £1,000, rising to more than £1,800 in London.
One in six people under the age of 34 is now unable to leave the family home because of the rising cost of renting a property themselves, said the report.
Landlords and letting agencies are often rejecting prospective tenants because of their credit history, a survey of 2,000 renters and landlords revealed.
An analysis of official data and Noddle’s research suggested that hundreds of thousands of 18 to 34-year-olds believed renting a house is “impossible.”