The value of housing assets left in wills every year may have more than doubled by 2020 from £14 billion now to £32 billion in today’s money, a Halifax Financial Services report said.

The report estimates that £360bn in today's money of housing assets will pass from one generation to another over the next 15 years. HFS also calculates that this transfer of housing wealth is the largest of its kind recorded in the UK.

The number of estates with property assets is expected to increase from (104,950) or 59% of the total in 2002/3 to (115,347) or 65% in 2019/20.

Baby boomers boost inheritance

The first baby boomers (born in 1946) will turn 60 this year and begin to retire. The number of baby boomers alive today is 15.8 million or 27% of the total population. They will play an important part in the intra-generational transfer of housing wealth that is to come.

More baby boomers (78%) own their own home than any other UK age group. In addition, baby boomers have witnessed an extraordinary transformation in British society: the rise of owner occupancy. In 1946, an estimated 31% of households owned their own homes. By 2001, this number had more than doubled to 70%

Pensions gap

The report said the prospect of growing inheritance would help to cover the pensions savings gap, but warned the figures do not take into account the significant, and rising, costs of residential care, which will erode some of this value.

Ray Milne, managing director of HFS said: "The amount of housing wealth inherited is expected to double in 15 years reflecting demographic changes and the passing away of the first mass generation of homeowners."

"Housing wealth will undoubtedly assist the next generation to provide for their pension. But it does not, by any means, reduce the need to save for the future including making provision for retirement."

The report suggested south-east England, excluding London, will witness the largest transfer of housing wealth in 2019-20, with an estimated £6.5 billion being left in wills.

It added that London would be next at just over £4.1 billion, but Wales was predicted to have the lowest share. North-west England, at £3.2 billion, would have the highest proportion of housing wealth transferred outside of the south, the report said.