Best route for the family, after 20 years

—

C — Borrow against your home, keep the portfolio

the family's combined position at the horizon

Their equity (plus what the smaller payment let them invest)—

Your side, after repaying the borrowing and its interest—

Interest you'll have paid—

A — Gift it from the portfolio

the family's combined position at the horizon

Their equity (plus invested payment savings)—

Your side, portfolio permanently smaller—

Growth you gave up on the gifted money—

B — Lend it, documented and secured

the family's combined position at the horizon

Their equity, net of the interest they pay you—

Your side, principal returned—

Interest they'll have paid you—

D — Do nothing; they buy on their own

the family's combined position at the horizon

Their equity, unhelped—

Your side, portfolio untouched—

What they pay every month—

What decides this in practice — not the arithmetic

A gift must really be a gift. Lenders require a signed gift letter confirming no repayment is expected. If money is quietly a loan, the payments belong in your child's debt ratios — and a letter saying otherwise is a misrepresentation on a mortgage application.
Borrowing to help changes your own qualification. Route C puts debt on your balance sheet, which every future lender will see. Worth pricing before you commit, not after.
Gifting investments is not the same as gifting cash. Handing over appreciated securities is treated as a sale at fair market value — a capital gain lands on your return that year. Cash carries no such event.
A loan is the usual protection. Documented and registered against title, it stays an asset of your estate and is the structure lawyers reach for when a relationship breakdown is a real risk. An undocumented "loan" tends to become a gift the moment it's contested.
Fairness between children outlives the numbers. Whatever route you choose, it becomes precedent for the next one — which is a conversation for your estate lawyer, not a calculator.

How this is figured — assumptions & the printed proof

Two balance sheets, one decision

Most advice on helping a child buy looks at one side only — either what it does for them, or what it costs you. The honest version scores both at once, and refuses the trick that flatters every "help them" answer: a smaller mortgage means smaller payments, and those savings have to go somewhere. Here they're invested, so the helped routes are never credited with money that simply vanished. What's left is the real question — whether the money works harder inside your portfolio or inside their mortgage, and what it costs to keep both. That last part, borrowing without disturbing what's already compounding, is the same logic as borrow versus sell, applied one generation down.

Structuring the help — a gift the lender accepts, a loan registered properly, or borrowing against your own balance sheet without disturbing the portfolio — is exactly what this desk arranges, alongside your advisor and estate lawyer.

Arrange a confidential introduction

Ramin Hallaji, Principal — licensed in British Columbia (BCFSA) and Alberta, Dominion Lending Centres Group · 778-879-6768 · ramin@privatewealthfinancing.ca

Illustration only — not tax, legal, estate-planning or investment advice, and not an offer of financing. Constant rates and smooth growth stand in for a lumpy reality. Both family loans and parental borrowing are modelled as interest-only with the principal settled at the horizon; the property is assumed held, so selling costs and any tax on an eventual sale are excluded, as is probate. Every route has legal and tax consequences this page does not model — the deemed disposition on gifted investments, documentation and registration of a family loan, creditor and marital-property exposure, and fairness among siblings all belong with the client's accountant and estate lawyer. Private Wealth Financing arranges mortgage financing only.

Helping the next one buy

Two balance sheets, one decision