One of the things I enjoy most about financial planning is that it isn’t just about numbers. It’s about people. More specifically, it’s about families.
Over the years I’ve had conversations with young couples buying their first home, parents planning for retirement, grandparents thinking about their legacy, and family business owners wondering what comes next. Although every family is different, one thing has become increasingly clear to me.
The biggest financial conversations rarely involve money at all.
They involve questions like:
Who will look after the family business?
Would the children actually want the family home?
Should we help them now instead of leaving everything later?
What do we actually want our wealth to achieve?
These aren’t questions about euro figures. They’re questions about people, values and relationships. Yet they’re also some of the most important financial decisions a family will ever make.
Many Irish families simply don’t have these conversations. Not because they don’t trust one another, but because previous generations often viewed finances as something private. Money wasn’t discussed around the dinner table. Parents didn’t talk about wills, inheritances or what they wanted to happen when they were gone. The assumption was that everything would somehow work itself out.
Sometimes it does.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
As a financial planner, I’ve seen the relief that comes from families having these conversations early. I’ve also seen the uncertainty that arises when important decisions are left until it’s too late. It’s rarely the money itself that creates problems.
It’s the assumptions.
Many people assume that leaving everything equally between their children is the fairest approach. In some families, that works perfectly. But every family is different.
What if one child has worked in the family business for twenty years while another has built a career elsewhere and has no interest in taking it over?
What if one child has already received significant financial support during your lifetime while another hasn’t?
What if one lives abroad and has no desire to own the family home?
What if the asset your children inherit isn’t really an asset at all, but a responsibility?
A family home often holds decades of memories for parents. For adult children living in Dublin, London, Sydney or New York, it may simply become a house that needs to be maintained, insured or sold.
A building isn’t always a home.
Home is where the people you love are.
These aren’t questions that can be answered by a will alone. They require conversations.
Working alongside my father has made me appreciate something that goes far beyond financial planning.
As a father-and-son business, these conversations aren’t theoretical for us. We have them ourselves. Not because either of us plans on stepping away any time soon, but because good planning isn’t about expecting something to happen tomorrow. It’s about making sure that when tomorrow eventually comes, everyone understands the plan.
That has given me a unique perspective on intergenerational wealth.
Wealth isn’t the only thing that’s passed from one generation to the next.
Values are passed on.
Responsibility is passed on.
Family stories are passed on.
The conversations themselves become part of the legacy.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we’re so passionate about intergenerational financial planning. We see every day how different generations often view money differently, yet ultimately want the same thing: to look after the people they love.
In last week’s article, Warm Heart, Not a Cold Hand, I explored the idea that, for many families, helping children during your lifetime can have a far greater impact than leaving an inheritance decades later. For many families, though, that’s another conversation that never happens.
Parents wonder whether they should help with a house deposit.
Children don’t ask because they don’t want to appear entitled.
Everyone is trying to protect everyone else.
Nobody says anything.
The same applies to family businesses. Should one child inherit the business? Should they buy out their siblings? Would the siblings even want to own part of a business they’ve never worked in?
These aren’t questions to answer after somebody has died.
They’re conversations worth having while everyone is still around the table.
The goal isn’t necessarily to make every decision today. It’s simply to begin the conversation.
One of the greatest gifts parents can leave their family isn’t just financial security.
It’s clarity.
Clarity about their wishes.
Clarity about why decisions have been made.
Clarity about what they hope their wealth will achieve.
In my experience, families rarely fall out because they knew too much.
They fall out because nobody knew enough.
The best financial plans don’t just reduce tax or improve investment returns. They reduce uncertainty. They help families understand not only what they own, but why they own it, who it is ultimately for, and how they hope it will make a difference.
Perhaps the biggest financial conversation families avoid isn’t:
“How much will everyone get?”
Perhaps it’s:
“What do we actually want our wealth to do for the people we love?”
That is a conversation worth having.
And perhaps now is the right time to start.
