Elderly people across the UK have accumulated £400bn in collective wealth to bequeath. But will it be the children or grandchildren who get the payout?

Name: Wealth mountains.

Age: Quite new.

Appearance: Wealthy. Mountainous.

Is this a Brexit thing? Are these wealth mountains that we’re saving or losing? And, while we’re at it, what’s happening with the butter mountains? Are they still a thing? It’s not a Brexit thing. It refers to the £400bn in grandparental wealth (mostly in the form of property) that is set to be inherited by the next generation.

And the butter? Is back, a bit, but need not concern us here.

OK. So, £400bn. That sounds – yeah, fairly mountainous. How come it is so large? Roughly 1 million people in the UK will leave estates each worth on average between £400,000 and £500,000. Multiply t’one by t’other and hey poncho – kabillions stack up quickly.

Wow. So we should all be nice to grandma and grandad. Well, only if you’re the offspring of one of the lucky million. If you’re not, obviously you can continue to treat them however you like.

I use mine as cheap childcare and draught excluders. You might want to play nice if you’re a grandchild of one of them, too – about half intend to will their wealth directly to their children’s children.

Millennials! I knew they’d show up sooner or later, with their overprivileged, entitled snowflakiness. Ye-es … although this passing on of wealth is actually intended to try to make up for the fact that the surge in house prices, rental and other living costs have made both saving for and buying a property of their own a distant dream for most of the younger generation.

That’s nice for the lucky legatees. What about everyone else? Umm …

Nothing doing? Not really, no. Under current economic conditions it’s very hard to accumulate the kind of wealth earlier generations managed.

So, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, is that it? Unless some powerfully charismatic leader converts the country to socialism and imposes a variety of changes, including and especially an unprecedentedly drastic redistributive tax programme, yes.

I shouldn’t hold my breath then? In all honesty, probably not.

Do say: “Another parma violet, Grandma? And then a long walk near a cliff edge?”

Don’t say: “Yes, that cats’ home does look like it could do with a half-million-pound donation, doesn’t it?”