ING estimates that 3.5 trillion euros will pass from European baby boomers to their heirs by the end of 2027. Globally, research firm Cerulli projects 124 trillion dollars changing hands by 2048, 105 trillion of it flowing to heirs. The great wealth transfer is no longer a forecast; it is under way.
Behind the headline figures sits a quieter behavioural finding: heirs do not feel ready. In Equitable's PEAK 35 study of American millennials, published in February 2026, 78 per cent said they felt confident about everyday financial decisions; only 27 per cent still did once the situation turned complex, with property, retirement accounts or a family business involved. There is little reason to think European heirs feel differently: the generation about to receive the most has, for the most part, never managed anything like what it is about to receive.
This guide covers the first year. Not long-term wealth strategy: the order of operations. What to do, in what sequence, and above all what can wait.
An inheritance is not a portfolio, it is a puzzle
Nobody inherits a clean, consolidated portfolio. You inherit pieces. A life insurance policy that, in many European countries, settles outside the estate and goes directly to named beneficiaries. National tax wrappers that may not survive their holder: in France, for instance, a PEA equity plan is closed at death and its holdings moved to an ordinary brokerage account. Regular brokerage accounts, sometimes held jointly with other heirs. Savings accounts, property, and increasingly digital assets whose access credentials have to be found first.
Every wrapper has its own rules, timeline and counterparties, and they differ from one country to the next: a grant of probate in Ireland, an Erbschein in Germany, a notaire in France or Belgium. That is what makes the first year so disorienting. The real difficulty is not making good investment decisions; it is reconstructing a complete picture of what exists.
Months 1 to 3: inventory everything, decide nothing
The first urgency is administrative, not financial. Deadlines are national: France expects the estate tax filing within six months, other countries run on different clocks, and the executor, notaire or probate court will drive that calendar. Your job is to complete the official picture with what registries see poorly: foreign brokers, crypto platforms, employee share plans from past employers.
Three habits are enough at this stage. Gather the latest statement for every account and record the value of each position at the date of death, since that valuation typically anchors the estate filing. Make no investment moves the estate itself does not require: nothing in this phase forces you to sell, reallocate or 'modernise' the portfolio you received. And keep a list of everything you do not understand, dated funds, unlisted holdings, structured products: that list becomes your work programme for the months ahead.
Months 3 to 6: understand what you actually own
Once the inventory exists, the question changes: what do you own, once everything is added together? It is the step almost everyone skips, and the one every later decision depends on.
Three blind spots come up again and again. Concentration first. The inherited portfolio reflects another person's convictions, often another era's: a handful of carefully accumulated home-market stocks, one overweighted sector, one dominant currency. Added to your own holdings, it can create exposures nobody ever chose.
Overlap next. Two funds with different names can hold the same underlying assets; an inherited world ETF and your own duplicate each other. As long as the positions live in separate interfaces, those overlaps stay invisible.
Fees last. Portfolios built twenty or thirty years ago often carry funds whose ongoing charges sit far above today's standards. Spotting them does not mean selling; it means knowing what doing nothing costs, every single year.
Months 6 to 12: decide with full information
The research points one way: heirs do not invest like their parents. Surveys reported by CNBC in June describe a generation leaning towards private markets, crypto assets and sustainable investing; Cerulli finds that only a minority keep their parents' adviser. None of this is good or bad in itself. But it creates one specific risk: reshaping a portfolio out of generational reflex rather than analysis.
The right end-of-year-one question is not 'should I sell everything' but 'what does this wealth change about my overall position'. An allocation designed for a 75-year-old probably does not mean the same thing for you; the reverse is just as true. The only way to decide calmly is to look at both portfolios as one, with the numbers in front of you, then go through it line by line.
Year one is won on visibility
If this guide had to fit in one sentence: the first year of an inheritance is decided by the quality of your inventory, not by your trades. Almost every expensive mistake, the rushed sale, the ignored concentration, the account forgotten for years, comes from an incomplete view.
That is precisely the scenario Tukhe is built for. The app lets you bring the inherited portfolio and your own into a single view, line by line, across wrappers and countries, and finally see the exposure, the overlaps and the fees of the whole. All of it on your machine: estate data is among the most intimate financial information there is, and it has no reason to pass through a third party's server.
The great wealth transfer is only beginning, and it will not just produce record numbers: it will hand complex portfolios to people who did not build them. Taking twelve months to see before you decide is not slowness; it is the one approach that requires no talent for prediction.
Tukhe is a local-first portfolio tracking app, built for European investors who want to keep control of their data. This article is for educational purposes and does not constitute investment advice.
