Retirees are handing an average of £4,522 a year to their children and grandchildren, according to new research from Quilter published on 28 September. The survey of more than 5,000 retirees also found something more worrying: 39% say the political environment is affecting their inheritance tax planning, and 62% of those who withdrew tax-free cash from their pension ahead of the last Budget now regret doing so.

With the next Budget on 28 October and speculation swirling about inheritance tax, that last figure is a warning worth taking seriously. Here's why rushed estate planning decisions so often backfire, and what you can sensibly do in the weeks ahead.

The government has unveiled "Your First Home", a new scheme that will let first-time buyers in England purchase a new-build home with a deposit of just 2.5%. Announced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham on 28 September, it pairs that small deposit with a government-backed equity loan worth up to 20% of the property's value, with an initial interest-free period. Full details, including price caps and income limits, are expected in Chancellor John Healey's Budget on 28 October, and pre-registration is due to open by the end of 2026.

For anyone who has watched house prices outpace their savings, this sounds like a breakthrough. It could be. But an equity loan is a legal and financial commitment that lasts for years, and buying a new-build brings its own conveyancing pitfalls. Here's what first-time buyers need to know before signing up.

"Couples can't afford to get divorced." That was the verdict of Lisa Pepper of Osbornes Law, one of several family lawyers reacting this week to new Office for National Statistics divorce figures. Divorce numbers in England and Wales stayed flat in 2025, at just under 106,000, and lawyers say economic pressure is part of the reason. Vanessa Friend of Hodge Jones & Allen described couples delaying separation because of uncertainty about the economy, mortgage rates and school fees, and turning to separation agreements instead.

With inflation back above 3% and the Bank of England warning that interest rates may rise again, many couples find they've emotionally separated long before they can afford to formally divorce. If that's your situation, there's a lot you can do to protect yourself in the meantime.

No-fault divorce has become the way almost everyone in England and Wales now ends a marriage. New figures from the Office for National Statistics, published this week, show that 94.2% of divorces and civil partnership dissolutions granted in 2025 went through the no-fault system introduced in April 2022. In total, 105,961 couples ended their marriage or civil partnership last year, almost unchanged from 2024, and the median length of a marriage ending in divorce reached 13 years, the longest since records began in 1963.

The data also shows that 74.1% of applications were made by one spouse alone rather than jointly, and that women brought 61% of sole applications in opposite-sex marriages. Behind those numbers is a process that is simpler than ever, but still easy to misunderstand. Here's what the figures tell us and where people most often go wrong.