That’s what my parents did. And the money went into a personal account.
But, the child can always choose to commingle once it’s in their possession - at least with an outright gift of cash.
I have shared many times on here that my parents both died when I was only 24 years old. I was engaged to dh, but we were not yet married. As we were wrapping up their estate my lawyer said to me, “Hoggirl, I know your soon-to-be dh is a great guy. I am sure you will have a long and happy marriage. However, inherited property is not marital property, and I suggest you keep what you have received from your parents separate.”
And, I have even 33 years later. EXCEPT for home purchases. But, I knew that those monies were no longer separate assets.
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But what if that gift is used for the family home? How is that gift recorded in the case of divorce?
How do you gift only your child after they’ve married? Do you draw up legal papers?
Curious
I imagine one could create a trust naming that specific person exclusively-
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Sure, but once a disbursement is made, then the child can do what they want with the funds.
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Prenups, folks. Prenups. 
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Exactly. And even if your kid starts off thinking they’ll keep the assets separate, don’t minimize the all too human tendency to try to save the marriage by buying things. The “oh, if we only had X, our lives would be easier (or more fun), and Spouse would be happy”. It’s often the case that the more troubled the marriage gets, the less financially responsible people act.
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Prenups won’t help commingled assets or gifts from 1 spouse to the other. I don’t mean to be negative, just aware of potential pitfalls of lifetime gifting outside of trusts.
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It all demands on how prenup is written. Consult a reputable attorney!
In the case of a down payment for a marital home, I think the parents could require the in-law to sign a piece of paper acknowledging that the gift is only to their child, and that, even though the funds are commingled, the spouse agrees to recognize that money as belonging to their child. I’d take it a step further and have that piece of paper say that the down payment represents 20% of the value of the house, so upon sale, the child gets 20% of the net proceeds and the remainder would get split 50/50. You’d have to check whether that would work in the state the house is in. But I think the bigger problem is it’s awfully hard as a parent to demand that kind of a letter waiving rights. It could generate a lot of hard feelings. I’d think the better way to do it would be to have a trust own (or co-own) it and specify the % ownership in the deed. It could be hard to find a mortgage company to lend $to your kids, though, under this scenario.
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I think you have to take a leap of faith. Once given a gift belongs to the recipient to do with what they choose. You could let them inherit–and never get the house, send kids to school, get a car–until you are dead and gone. If you really don’t trust their judgement (or the spouse) then don’t hand them money. Pay directly for a specific purpose to help. Sometimes things don’t work out to our liking but that’s 20/20 hindsight and trying to control kid’s lives is not exactly the path to family harmony.
Lending to anybody is a risk. You should not be lending money to anybody (family, friend, worker) if you will not be able to just consider it a “gift” rather than a loan if it goes sour.
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Do you get 20 per cent of the repairs to the house/plumbing/improvements/ home insurance/ HOA fees?
This! My bil and sil spent so much money. He wanted to make her happy and she thought if she just had “that” or “went there” she would be happy. Now they are just dividing up assets
Thanks for answering my question. I think my daughter and her fiancé will have a prenup but I do wonder if for instance they are gifted money for fertility treatments, that wouldn’t be part of the prenup. Time will tell with these things and everyone thinks their marriage will be the forever one.
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Your post reminded me of vacations at the beach with our “kids” (when they were late teens and 20s). We didn’t have many requirements. BUT, we did say if you eat with us, we pay. If not, you pay. (There was always plenty that could be cooked or eaten without going out). So… husband and I would get up early, do our thing. Kids would get up about 3… Then we would go to “nice” dinners, on the parents, and they would do their thing/stay up til the wee hours. I realized it was their vacation too, and so tried really hard to relax my expectations. They did have to get up to do snorkeling excursions and things like that as agreed to, but we tried not to plan too much early in the morning.
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Children should be treated equally, to the penny. If parents give $100,000 to one, regardless of the reason, then $100,000 needs to be given to each of them.
My own parents have almost $100,000 to a sibling-who has earned more than I have anyway- and then lied about it to me and, when they were called out on it, offered me a fraction of that. That did permanent damage to our relationship.
I declined the smaller gift and that felt good.
I agree with you all things being equal. And I don’t mean in earning power or number of kids or career choices. Those are personal choices. Everyone gets the same.
But not everything is really equal sometimes. We had a friend who struggled with his will. What he wanted was just an equal divide among his kids. But one was a drug addict who would’ve spent literally everything on drugs.
It was tough. Not everything is black and white.
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Perhaps giving to children equally is ideally the goal, but not necessarily should be or strictly expected to be. And to the penny? Really? That kinda blows my mind.
My parents paid for my brother’s law school and parts of his undergrad but he attended CC for a year first.
They paid for my schooling, sorority fees, and wedding.
Neither my brother or I are comparing how much exactly that entailed on either side. I can’t imagine doing that. My parents paid for what they wanted and could.
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I disagree with this idea. One of my kids went to an expensive private college. He got a big scholarship or it wouldn’t have been an option. Other was told that we’d pay higher than originally planned for college, mostly bc of expensive private. But 2nd said the more expensive school wasn’t worth the difference in cost for him. I did not offer the difference in cost to 2nd. They both got the education they picked, and I’m fine with that. We did let 2nd kid pick a car that was a little nicer than first. First cared not even a little bit about cars. 2nd wanted a cooler car. Neither was a really expensive car.
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I appreciate the sentiment of being equal in giving, but my mil used to take this to a ridiculous extreme regarding gift giving at Christmas. As an example, let’s say she bought me slippers that cost $30. She also bought dh slippers, but his were only $25. So, it would be necessary for her to find an additional $5 gift to give to dh so things would be, “equal.” I kid you not.
One, “even Steven,” issue that caused some hurt feelings surrounded a VERY unexpected cash gift from the in-laws to our ds and to his first cousin. They are both only children and the only two grandchildren. Notwithstanding my fil’s cheapness in general (and rarely buying meals out), he decided one Christmas to gift each of his grandchildren $5,000. We had no idea this was happening. Our ds was a sophomore in college at an elite university. My niece had flunked out of a directional college and was stocking at Walmart. There was a lot of shame about this from the in-laws’ POV. At any rate, fil wrote each of them a check. After they opened the cards with the checks, he said, “Dear granddaughter, you can use that money to go back to college. Dear grandson, since your college is taken care of (because we were paying for it), you can spend yours on whatever you want.” My sil was livid, though she managed to conceal it. She said to me, “He doesn’t think she can finish unless he helps her.” There is also a pretty big difference in income levels and resources between dh and his sister. While I appreciated that fil wanted to be fair, it was not necessary to give our ds $5,000. If he wanted to encourage my niece to return to school and help pay for it, there were better ways to handle that. He had actually wanted to film their opening of the cards! To forever memorialize his grand gesture.
Oh, yes, Christmas with the in-laws. My MiL insisted on same dollar amounts for both sons and DiLs. Every holiday we each got some coins to make it even.
They gifted us money sometimes (less than $1000 per gift), but I found out quickly it came with judgment and criticism. So I started thanking them in writing for the gift that went toward our mortgage or the kids college funds.