How can we help children out?
In 1996 we made a donation aux enfants , giving our two children our property here in France. This means they own the house we live in. I realise this would make the French equivalent of equity release a non-starter. Is there another way of releasing money to help our children in the short term? J.F.
In making a donations aux enfants you make a gift of some sort with conditions.
There are several types of such gifts. In general, however, the most common type is that of the reserved benefit of the ownership of the house, while the parents retain the life interest to use the house for the remainder of their lives and since you refer to the principle of equity release, then one can but suppose that it is this type of donation that you have made.
Alternatively, but possibly more improbable, you might have made the entire house over to the children outright and were paying them rent for the right to use the house.
However, as you have devolved the ownership of the house to the children, short of making cash gifts or doing another donation on other assets of value, there is nothing else you can do.
Possibly the children could try to arrange equity release themselves but this would be difficult in France.
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