The idea that Britain is becoming a more meritocratic society has long been a theme of Conservative leaders, from Theresa May to Liz Truss.
That claim is challenged by the growing significance of the bank of mum and dad (bomad), and the embarrassment and guilt felt by some of those who have been forced to rely on parental largesse to buy their own home.
“I found it infantilising borrowing money from my dad,” said Nic Jones, a senior university administrator who moved into her first home, a house in Brighton, with her partner last December at the age of 43. “I didn’t ask him for it – we had a conversation and he asked how far away we were from what we needed. He just said: ‘Well, I can lend it to you.’
“At first I was really resistant. But you can only get a mortgage until you’re 70, so we were running out of time. I find it really strange that I earn really well, my partner earns really well, but we’re in this weird situation of having to rely on my parents.”
Jones sees colleagues in their 50s and 60s wanting to give their children a deposit, even delaying retirement. “If my dad had ever suggested that, I would definitely have said no. But I guess I can understand the parental impulse.
“There is a sense of resentment, but not towards the people who can afford it – I resent the way the housing market is. And Liz Truss for hiking up the interest rates.”
Among the first-time buyers canvassed by the Observer, there is a notable lack of resentment towards those who are better off but instead a concern about what the situation means for people unable to get on to the property ladder.
Michael Robinson, a 33-year-old software developer, is in the process of buying his first home, in Milton Keynes. He had no direct help but moved back in with his parents two years ago, and not paying rent has allowed him to raise £30,000 for a deposit.
“My parents did offer to help me out if I needed it,” he said. “I wouldn’t begrudge people doing that – for a lot of people it’s necessary because of the gap in generational wealth. There’s a much wider inequality in general than when my parents were doing this.
“Even for me, as a relatively wealthy person, I’m in danger of being priced out, and that’s pretty scary. It seems we’re heading into a class system of people who own property and people who don’t.”
There is no shortage of evidence of the impact of parental wealth on life chances. Successful professionals born between 1965 and 1981 live in less affluent areas if their parents were working class, researchers demonstrated, probably because they did not have access to a bank of mum and dad. Social mobility is now harder to achieve than it has been for 50 years because of the importance of inherited wealth.
Alan, a 50-year-old doctor on a substantial salary, lived for a decade in a two-bedroom flat with his wife and three children in an expensive part of London close to the hospital where he works. Now they are in a three-bedroom ex-council flat, battling problems with damp, thanks to a £100,000 gift from his father. “How can it be that at the age of 50, with 25 years of experience, I’m having to rely on my father to help me buy a small flat?” he asks. “I’m embarrassed in lots of ways – embarrassed that I’m having to rely on my parents, embarrassed that I have access to this resource, and angry that even with all that resource you end up living in something that’s only just adequate.”
For Laura Nelson, a 36-year-old content designer, being able to buy her home thanks to a £5,000 gift from her grandparents meant freedom from having to move again. “In the 15 years I’ve lived in Brighton, I’ve had 10 or 11 addresses. Having to move every single year is really annoying. And I had an illegal cat, so to be able to live without the fear of my landlord discovering was a big thing.”
Many beneficiaries face another dilemma: talking about it or not. Revealing they had help might invite envy, yet not doing so might make friends wanting to buy a house believe they were doing something wrong, Jones said.
And there are family secrets – one new homeowner who had help from relatives is not allowed to talk to her cousins about their support, since the others will not get help on the basis that their parents are rich enough already.
Dr Liz Moor, an academic at Goldsmiths, University of London, conducted research on how people reconciled receiving parental gifts with the idea of living in a meritocratic society, something most supported.
People were understandably defensive. “They tended to try and recast the gift as evidence of meritocratic progress for the family as a whole,” she said. “So they tried to tell a story where their parents or grandparents had come from much more humble, working-class roots than they themselves did; that they’d had to work hard, save hard, be careful with money in order to get enough money to buy property of their own.
“My co-author and I know that story – it’s one we told ourselves. But that story got a bit tricky when we started to ask about friends, because it becomes clear it’s not about how hard you’re working – it’s about unfairness and arbitrariness as to who gets housing security and who doesn’t. And then people come back to rely on ideas about family and the naturalness of wanting to pass things on to one’s children, one’s descendants.”
