When a client's wealth passes to their family

Triple Point warns that advice firms risk losing client assets as the UK's £5.5 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer gathers pace, unless they build relationships with a client's spouse and children before the wealth moves (Money Marketing, 27 October 2026). An accountant who prepares the family's accounts and returns usually knows that spouse and those children already.

11 min read · 28 October 2026 · Altro Partners, by Equity & General

£5.5tn

intergenerational wealth transfer under way in the UK, Triple Point says, as wealth moves to spouses and younger generations

Triple Point, reported by Money Marketing, 27 October 2026

Reacting to

Advice firms risk losing assets in £5.5tn wealth transfer (Money Marketing, 27 October 2026)

Triple Point's warning is written for financial advisers, about assets on an adviser's books. The same wealth transfer runs through accounts an accountant has already been preparing for years, for a wider set of family members than the one the adviser knows.

What Triple Point found

In its white paper, From Accumulation to Legacy: Transformation of the Financial Advice Market, Triple Point argues that advisers must rethink their propositions as demographic shifts, regulatory change and tax reform reshape what clients need. Firms that focus mainly on building wealth risk missing the growing demand for retirement income planning, estate planning and intergenerational advice, the report says. Its central finding: a firm can see client assets leave its books when wealth passes to a surviving spouse or to younger generations, if the firm has never built a relationship with those family members directly.

£5.5tn

the UK's intergenerational wealth transfer, gathering pace, Triple Point says.

8.6%

of UK adults had taken regulated financial advice in the previous twelve months.

13%

of self-employed adults had done so.

Triple Point, reported by Money Marketing, 27 October 2026; FCA, Financial Lives 2024

Triple Point names four forces behind the shift: Consumer Duty, longer life expectancy, the decline of defined benefit pensions, and the inheritance tax change affecting pensions from 6 April 2027. Together they are moving advice away from pure accumulation and towards retirement income, asset preservation and the transfer of wealth between generations. The report recommends that firms move beyond a client-by-client approach to a broader family-based planning model, engaging both existing clients and the people who will eventually receive their assets.

The relationship an adviser is missing is one the accountant already has

Triple Point's concern is an adviser's relationship with a single client, and what happens to that relationship when the client's wealth moves to someone the adviser has never met. An accountancy practice is usually in a different position. A family company often has more than one name on the shareholder register: a husband-and-wife shareholding, a parent and an adult child both drawing a salary, a sibling who joined the business five years after it started. The practice preparing the accounts and the personal tax returns for that company already deals with more than one family member, often for years before any of them inherits, sells or retires.

None of that makes the accountant a financial adviser. It means the practice is positioned to notice something Triple Point's report describes from the adviser's side: that the person about to receive a family's wealth is frequently someone nobody in financial services has ever spoken to.

Two women looking through papers together

Rosalind Hudson, Triple Point, 27 October 2026: “The pace of change in financial advice is accelerating, driven by regulatory change, ongoing demographic developments, growing income demands and rising wealth transfers. Advisers need to consider how these changes are reshaping their clients’ needs and the future of their businesses.”

A worked example

This example uses a made-up family and made-up figures.

A joinery business has traded for twenty-two years. The founder holds 70% of the shares and his wife holds the remaining 30%, a split made at incorporation for tax reasons that nobody has revisited since. Two of their three adult children now work in the business; one was given a 5% shareholding eighteen months ago ahead of an eventual handover, the other is on the payroll with no shares. The founder, now 64, has started reducing his hours and drawing a smaller salary. The practice has prepared the company accounts and all four family members' personal tax returns throughout this period.

The joinery business

Made-up family and made-up figures

Years trading22

Shareholding, founder70%

Shareholding, spouse30%

Shareholding given to an adult child, 18 months ago5% (from the founder's 70%)

Family members on the practice's books, across the company and personal returns4

Nothing about this family has triggered a sale, a retirement or a death. What has happened is visible only to whoever prepares the paperwork: a shareholding has already moved to the next generation, the founder's income is already falling, and his wife's 30% has sat untouched and undiscussed since the company was formed. On Triple Point's figures, the spouse and the child who received shares are exactly the family members a firm with no relationship to them stands to lose touch with entirely once the founder steps back further.

What shows in a family's accounts and returns

A spouse who holds shares in the family company but has never discussed what happens to them. A second or third personal tax return starting because an adult child has joined the business, whether as an employee or a shareholder. A founder's drawings falling year on year as they step back from day-to-day running. A parent's rental income or dividend income continuing well into their seventies, with no record of anyone having reviewed what it should be doing for them. Each of these is something the practice already records in the ordinary course of its work, and each is a point at which a family's wealth is already moving before any single event makes the transfer final.

Accountancy work

Noticing which family members hold shares, draw income or have recently joined the business, and whether any of them have discussed what that means with anyone outside the practice, is professional judgement about a client the practice already knows.

Regulated advice

Whether the spouse's shareholding, the child's new shares or the founder's falling drawings call for a change, a gift, a trust or a pension decision is a question for the Equity & General financial adviser, working with whichever family members want to be involved.

The division is set out in what the accountant does and what the financial adviser does. Business succession, where a sale transfers the business itself to a new owner, is covered separately in the joined-up exit.

The FCA's Financial Lives 2024 survey found that 8.6% of UK adults, and 13% of self-employed adults, had received regulated financial advice in the previous twelve months. A business owner is more likely than most to have had some contact with a financial adviser along the way. A spouse who has never run the business, or an adult child who has just joined it, is statistically far less likely to have had any advice at all, and is frequently the family member about to receive the shares, the income or the house. Triple Point's report is a warning to advisers about losing that person's business. For an accountant, the same fact is a reason to ask whether that family member has had a conversation with anyone before the shares, the income or the house change hands.

Two things to do this week

List the family companies on the client list with more than one shareholder. Where a spouse or an adult child holds shares, note whether they have ever been part of a conversation about what happens to that holding. The practice already has the shareholder register; this is a read of information it holds, not new work.
Add one question to the next review with an owner who has started stepping back. “Has your wife, husband or whoever holds shares alongside you ever spoken to a financial adviser about what they'd want to happen to that holding?” The answer tells the practice whether a family wealth transfer is approaching unadvised. Asking is not regulated advice.

What is not yet settled

Triple Point's report is the firm's own analysis and recommendation to the advice profession. It is a commercial white paper, and the coverage available does not give a stated methodology, sample size or fieldwork date for the £5.5 trillion figure. The report does not tie that figure to a specific year by which the transfer completes. The pension inheritance tax change it cites, for deaths on or after 6 April 2027, is law (Finance Act 2026). The pace and shape of the wider wealth transfer is Triple Point's own reading of the market, and should be treated as that firm's view, separate from an official forecast.

Common questions

What did Triple Point's report find?

Triple Point's white paper, From Accumulation to Legacy: Transformation of the Financial Advice Market, reported by Money Marketing on 27 October 2026, warns that advice firms risk losing client assets as the UK's £5.5 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer gathers pace, unless they build relationships with a client's spouse and children before wealth passes to them. The report names Consumer Duty, longer life expectancy, the decline of defined benefit pensions and the pension inheritance tax change due in April 2027 as the forces moving advice away from pure accumulation and towards retirement income, estate planning and intergenerational transfer.

Why does this matter to the accountant as well as the financial adviser?

Triple Point's warning is about an adviser's relationship with a family. The accountant's relationship with the same family is usually older and wider. A firm that has prepared a company's accounts for a husband-and-wife shareholding, or completed tax returns for an owner and their adult children once they joined the business, already holds the facts that show a wealth transfer approaching: a spouse's shareholding, a child added as a director, an ageing parent's income. None of that is regulated advice. It is information already in the file.

What in a family's accounts shows a transfer is coming?

A spouse who holds shares but has never been party to a conversation about what happens to them. An adult child added as a director or given a shareholding ahead of succession. A parent moving from running the business day-to-day into a non-executive role while drawing a smaller salary. A second tax return starting for a child who has just joined the family company payroll. Each of these appears in the ordinary course of preparing accounts and returns, years before a share sale, a retirement or a death makes the transfer actual.

What should an accountant do if a family wealth transfer looks close?

Ask who in the family has had a conversation with a financial adviser about what the transfer means for them. That includes the person who will eventually receive the asset, as well as the person who currently holds it. The FCA's Financial Lives 2024 survey found 8.6% of UK adults had taken regulated financial advice in the previous twelve months, and 13% of the self-employed; a spouse or adult child who has never run their own business is statistically less likely to have had any advice at all. Asking the question is not regulated advice. If the family would like a conversation, the accountant makes the introduction through the portal, and the Equity & General financial adviser speaks to whichever family members want to be involved.

Is this the same as business succession planning?

Related, but wider. Business succession is one route a family wealth transfer takes, covered separately in the joined-up exit. Triple Point's report also covers wealth that has already left a business: a retired owner's investment portfolio, a surviving spouse's pension, a parent's house. By that stage the business is often gone and the accountant sees only the personal tax return. The point still applies. The family member who inherits or receives the asset has often never spoken to a financial adviser.

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