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Good Morning,

At a family reunion at my father’s house, we were discussing wills and whether we had our affairs in order. My dad said - with a marvellous but perhaps deliberate slip of the tongue - that everything was up to date, and that he had signed the forms giving me lasting power of eternity. Which sounds wonderful but is not something, as far as I know, that any law firm can guarantee.

The pandemic has intensified the whole issue of inheritance. According to the consumer experts Which? there was an eightfold increase in people making wills during the first lockdown. At the same time there’s been a huge backlog in dealing with probate – the process of administering the last will and testament of the deceased and the distributing of any possible inheritance.

The economist Thomas Piketty says that we are now living in an inheritance society. As a result of asset prices (mainly property) outstripping wages, we’re heading back to a situation where the bulk of wealth comes from inheritance, not work. It is estimated that Millennials in the US will inherit more than $68 trillion dollars from their Boomer parents by 2030 – potentially the biggest collective wealth transfer in history.

An inheritance can be a blessing. But it can be a curse, bending lives out of shape, destroying family relationships, leaving a legacy of strife and bitterness. Siblings squabbling over chattels they had happily lived without for years. An inheritance can either be too much, too little or too late; keeping the inheritors in a state of false hope with the promise of something that can’t, despite the best will in the world, be guaranteed.

In the famous parable, The Prodigal Son demands his inheritance while his father is still alive. In that culture this would have been considered a serious insult to the parent; but perhaps it is a sign of things to come. Given the wealth gap emerging between the generations. And with the young not leaving home until they’re nearly 30, their inheritance seeming a lifetime’s wait away.

The Psalmist wrote ‘All can see that wise men and fools die, leaving their wealth to others, though they name lands after themselves, and take nothing with them.’ When it comes to inheritance the Bible offers little encouragement in the way of chattels; but it makes some lavish promises about being God’s heirs and inheriting the earth.

Hanging on my wall here, just above by desk, I have a collage of St Francis of Assisi that I inherited from my Gran. She made it herself out of discarded bits of material. Though it’s not worth much it’s precious: for it depicts a man who gave up his considerable worldly inheritance – much to his earthly father’s astonishment – in the pursuit of the lasting power of eternity.

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