For decades, successful business owners have concentrated on one overriding objective: building wealth.
Building the company.
Reinvesting profits.
Buying property.
Building pensions and investments.
Creating financial security for their families.
But for a growing number of successful entrepreneurs in their 50s, 60s and 70s, the financial question is beginning to change.
It is no longer simply:
“How do I create more wealth?”
Increasingly, it is:
“What should happen to everything I’ve created?”
That question is becoming particularly important as Britain enters what has been described as the Great Wealth Transfer — the movement of trillions of pounds of property, businesses, pensions, investments and other assets from one generation to the next.
For families with substantial wealth, however, passing it on successfully involves considerably more than writing a will.
In my experience, the families best prepared for this transition think about three things together:
the money, the people and the purpose.
Get one of those wrong and even a very substantial inheritance can create problems rather than solve them.
What is the Great Wealth Transfer?
The term describes the enormous amount of wealth beginning to move from older generations, particularly Baby Boomers, to their children and grandchildren.
Various estimates put the amount expected to change hands in the UK over the coming decades in the trillions of pounds.
But focusing only on the headline number misses something important.
This isn’t simply money moving between bank accounts.
It includes:
- privately owned businesses
- commercial and residential property
- investment portfolios
- pensions
- cash
- family homes
- trusts and other structures
For successful business owners, the position can be particularly complex because the asset that created the family’s wealth may also be its largest asset.
That creates questions that conventional inheritance planning doesn’t always answer.
Who should own the business?
Should children inherit shares or cash?
Does the next generation actually want to run it?
Should the business be sold?
When should wealth start moving outside the company?
How much should parents retain?
And what does “fair” actually mean when different children have very different relationships with the family business?
These aren’t questions that should first be discussed after somebody dies.
The biggest mistake may be waiting
There is a natural tendency to treat inheritance as something that happens later.
I’ll sort it out when I retire.
We’ll discuss it after I sell the company.
I’ll update the will next year.
The problem is that wealth transfer is not necessarily an event.
It’s a process.
And for many families it begins years, sometimes decades, before an inheritance eventually takes place.
Parents may help children buy their first property.
Grandparents may contribute towards education.
Business owners may transfer shares.
Families may establish trusts or make lifetime gifts.
An entrepreneur might sell a business and decide that part of the proceeds should benefit the next generation immediately.
That is why I prefer to think about intergenerational financial planning rather than simply inheritance planning.
One looks at what happens when you die.
The other considers how your family’s wealth should work across generations while you’re still here to influence the outcome.
Question 1: What is your wealth actually for?
Before discussing tax, trusts or gifting allowances, I think families should answer a much more fundamental question:
What do you want your wealth to achieve?
There is no universally correct answer.
For one family, the priority may be ensuring children never have to worry about housing.
For another, it might be preserving a family company for the next generation.
Others want to fund grandchildren’s education, support charities, provide financial independence for a surviving spouse or simply leave children a meaningful inheritance.
Some parents want to give substantial amounts away during their lifetime.
Others worry that transferring too much wealth too early could remove motivation or create dependency.
These are not primarily investment questions.
They’re questions about family values.
And until those values are understood, it is difficult to build the right financial structure around them.
Question 2: How much can you afford to give away?
This is one of the most important calculations in wealth planning.
A successful 60-year-old business owner may look at their assets and conclude that they have considerably more than they will ever need.
Perhaps they do.
But retirement could last 30 years or longer.
Future expenditure may include:
- travel and lifestyle
- helping children and grandchildren
- healthcare
- later-life care
- property costs
- inflation
- unexpected family circumstances
Business owners also face a psychological transition that is easy to underestimate.
For decades, the company may have generated their income.
After a sale, that changes.
Suddenly the capital accumulated from a lifetime’s work has to support the family’s lifestyle potentially for decades.
Before making substantial gifts, I therefore believe families should understand one thing very clearly:
What is enough?
How much capital do you need to maintain your own independence for the rest of your life — under a range of reasonable scenarios?
Only once that has been established can you properly understand what might genuinely be surplus.
Giving money away can be easy.
Giving it away with confidence is much harder.
Question 3: Should your children inherit later — or benefit now?
This is becoming one of the most interesting conversations in financial planning.
Traditionally, significant family wealth moved primarily through inheritance.
But consider when children may actually receive it.
With increasing longevity, somebody could easily be in their 50s or 60s by the time they inherit from their parents.
By then they may already have bought a home, educated their children and passed through the financially demanding years when additional capital could have made the greatest difference.
That raises an important question:
Could some of your wealth have greater value to your family today than it would as an inheritance decades from now?
A gift might help a child:
- buy a home
- reduce a mortgage
- establish a business
- educate their own children
- improve their financial security
There can also be Inheritance Tax considerations.
UK rules provide several exemptions for lifetime gifts, while some larger outright gifts can fall outside an estate for Inheritance Tax purposes if the donor survives for seven years.
But tax should not be the only reason for making a gift.
The starting point should always be whether the decision is appropriate for the family and affordable for the person giving the money.
Question 4: Have you considered the business separately from the money?
This is particularly important for entrepreneurs.
Imagine a business owner with three children.
One has worked in the company for 15 years and is capable of eventually running it.
The other two have successful careers elsewhere and have no interest in joining the business.
An apparently simple objective —
“I want to treat my children equally.”
— suddenly becomes complicated.
Does equal mean giving each child one-third of the company?
Would that be fair to the child who has spent their career building it?
Would three-way ownership actually be good for the business?
Should the other children receive different assets?
What happens if most of the family’s wealth is tied up in the company?
There is rarely a simple mathematical answer.
This is where succession planning and financial planning need to meet.
For multi-million-pound business-owning families, deciding who should inherit what can be every bit as important as deciding how much tax may be payable.
Question 5: Does your Inheritance Tax strategy still work?
This deserves particular attention now because the UK Inheritance Tax landscape has changed.
For 2026/27, the standard nil-rate band remains £325,000, with a residence nil-rate band potentially available in qualifying circumstances. These thresholds are currently set to remain frozen for several more years.
There have also been significant changes affecting qualifying business and agricultural assets from April 2026.
And another major change arrives on 6 April 2027, when most unused pension funds and pension death benefits are due to become part of an individual’s estate for Inheritance Tax purposes.
For affluent families that have historically regarded pensions as an effective vehicle for passing wealth to the next generation, this is significant.
It doesn’t mean everyone should start withdrawing pensions or giving assets away.
It does mean assumptions made five or ten years ago may no longer produce the same result.
That’s why estate planning should be reviewed rather than filed away.
Question 6: Is the next generation prepared to receive wealth?
This is the question that receives far too little attention.
We spend enormous amounts of time discussing how to transfer wealth efficiently.
But what about preparing somebody to receive it?
A person can inherit investments without understanding investing.
They can inherit property without understanding property.
They can inherit shares in a business without understanding the business.
And they can inherit several million pounds without ever previously having been responsible for significant capital.
Passing wealth and preparing somebody for wealth are two different things.
The most successful families I encounter tend to begin the conversation before the money changes hands.
That doesn’t necessarily mean telling children precisely what they will inherit.
It means helping them understand:
- how the family’s wealth was created
- the responsibilities that accompany it
- investment principles
- the family’s attitude towards risk
- philanthropy
- the purpose of trusts or family structures
- expectations surrounding the family business
Financial education can be one of the most valuable parts of an inheritance.
Question 7: Has the family actually had the conversation?
Sometimes the biggest obstacle isn’t tax.
It’s silence.
Parents don’t want children to feel entitled.
Children feel uncomfortable asking about their parents’ finances.
Nobody wants to discuss death.
Business succession becomes emotionally charged.
So everyone avoids the conversation.
Until circumstances force it.
In my view, that is one of the greatest risks in intergenerational planning.
Imagine the difference between children discovering everything after a parent’s death and having spent the previous ten years understanding the family’s intentions.
One produces uncertainty.
The other creates continuity.
A family meeting can therefore be an extraordinarily valuable financial-planning tool.
It can establish:
- what parents want to achieve
- what children expect
- who wants involvement in the business
- what should happen after a sale
- how lifetime gifts will work
- charitable intentions
- how professional advisers will support the family
These conversations aren’t always easy.
But difficult conversations held early are generally preferable to difficult decisions made during bereavement.
The 2027 pension change makes this more urgent
There is another reason families should be having these conversations now.
From April 2027, most unused pension funds and death benefits will be brought within the value of an estate for Inheritance Tax purposes.
That could materially alter estate-planning calculations for some affluent families.
Someone with:
- a valuable business
- property
- investment assets
- and a substantial pension
may discover that their future taxable estate looks quite different once pension wealth is included.
This makes it increasingly important to consider pensions alongside the rest of the family balance sheet rather than treating them as a separate retirement product.
The Great Wealth Transfer isn’t really about inheritance
This may sound strange.
But I don’t believe the Great Wealth Transfer is fundamentally about inheritance.
It’s about transition.
For business owners, there may be several transitions happening simultaneously:
Business wealth → personal wealth
Working life → retirement
Founder → investor or mentor
Parent → wealth steward
First generation → second and third generations
That is why focusing purely on Inheritance Tax can miss the bigger opportunity.
The objective shouldn’t simply be:
“How do I minimise the tax bill?”
A better question is:
“How do I transfer wealth in a way that strengthens my family’s long-term financial position?”
Those are very different conversations.
Paul Buckley’s perspective
Having spent many years working with successful business owners and families, I’ve come to believe that creating wealth and transferring wealth require very different mindsets.
Entrepreneurs are usually excellent accumulators.
They take calculated risks.
They build.
They reinvest.
They make decisions.
But eventually the objective changes.
The challenge becomes turning the wealth created by a successful business into something capable of supporting several generations.
And that requires more than investment management.
It requires conversations about retirement, business succession, pensions, tax, children, gifting, estate planning and, ultimately, what the family wants its wealth to achieve.
The families that handle this well don’t necessarily have the cleverest tax structure.
They usually have something more valuable:
clarity.
They know what the wealth is for.
They know what they need themselves.
They know what they want their children to receive.
And importantly, their family understands the plan.
Seven questions to discuss with your family
If your family has accumulated significant wealth, I would start with these:
- What do we ultimately want our wealth to achieve?
- How much do we need to retain to remain financially independent?
- Would we rather help our children during our lifetime or leave a larger inheritance?
- What should eventually happen to the business?
- Does our existing Inheritance Tax and pension strategy still work under current rules?
- Are our children prepared for the responsibility of inheriting substantial wealth?
- Does everyone who needs to understand the plan actually understand it?
You don’t need all the answers immediately.
Starting the conversation is often the most important step.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Great Wealth Transfer in the UK?
The Great Wealth Transfer describes the large-scale movement of assets from older generations to their children and grandchildren. Estimates vary, but trillions of pounds of UK wealth are expected to change hands over the coming decades through inheritances and lifetime gifts.
Should wealthy parents give money to their children before they die?
There is no universal answer. Lifetime gifting can help children when they need financial support most and can have estate-planning advantages, but parents should first establish that gifts will not compromise their own long-term financial security.
How does the seven-year rule work for Inheritance Tax?
Some outright gifts to individuals can become exempt from Inheritance Tax if the person making the gift survives for seven years. Other exemptions and rules may apply, so substantial gifting should be considered within the family’s overall estate plan.
Are pensions subject to Inheritance Tax?
The rules are changing. From 6 April 2027, most unused pension funds and pension death benefits will be brought within the value of a deceased person’s estate for Inheritance Tax purposes. Some benefits are excluded.
What happens to a family business when the owner dies?
The answer depends on ownership, shareholder arrangements, the will, the nature of the business and whether relevant Inheritance Tax reliefs apply. Business owners should therefore coordinate succession, estate and financial planning well before a transfer becomes necessary.
When should a business owner start succession and inheritance planning?
Ideally, years before a planned retirement or business exit. Starting earlier usually provides more time to consider ownership, family objectives, retirement security, gifting and tax implications without being forced into rushed decisions.
Final thoughts
Britain’s Great Wealth Transfer is not an event waiting somewhere in the future.
For many families, it has already begun.
Parents are helping children buy homes.
Business owners are considering succession.
Entrepreneurs are selling companies.
Grandparents are funding grandchildren.
Families are reconsidering pensions and Inheritance Tax.
The question for successful business owners is therefore not simply:
“What will I leave behind?”
It is:
“How can the wealth I’ve spent a lifetime creating have the greatest positive impact on my family?”
Answer that question first.
Then build the financial plan around it.
Buckley Financial Services provides independent financial planning for successful business owners and their families across the UK, helping them prepare for business exit, retirement and the transfer of wealth to future generations.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute personal financial, tax or legal advice. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may change. Where appropriate, financial planning should be coordinated with your solicitor and tax adviser.
