To not want to pay off my mortgage?

I wouldn’t use all my savings to pay off my mortgage. The day after you do that, the roof will fall in, you’ll need a new boiler, your car will blow up and you’ll be fucked.

That’s how my life works anyway so it’s a firm no from me! If you decide to do it, put your mtg payments into a locked savings account so you can get that back up ASAP

Completely agree. I'd walk away from the money. It's not a gift.

I'd not be discussing finance of any description with PIL or anyone who might keep them informed. Do you have as much insight into their finances?

If you want to still have some money in the bank you could put the money into a seperate account, and use it to make your mortgage payments with the maximum over payment each year to minimise the interest paid.

Then because you’re not having to pay the mortgage from your salary each month you can save that amount too.

So it’s a trade off with the behaviour, you haven’t outlined exactly why his parents are an issue so it’s hard to judge. I’m from a Culture where it’s very much respect to elders, Chinese to be exact. Whilst I have read some genuine horror stories of parental interference on here some is very minor.

I see no problem with the stipulation of its for the mortgage what could be a problem is the behaviours to come. Something like insisting they always go on holiday with you type of stuff. When my Father left money to me it was to be used for my children’s education only for University and that is exactly what is happening it has sat untouched in an account in my name gaining interest.

Pay off the mortgage. If you’re worried about frittering the money away, I’d say open a savings account with a withdrawal notice period. Even a month would be fine. It means that you can’t just decide to go out for random meals all the time and waste the money but if the washing machine goes, you can put the cost on a credit card and pay it off next month.

Does your MIL also want you to use your and DH 50k to pay off the mortgage so its 100k total.

Given that you best know your MIL I wouldn't accept the gift which sounds like she's also dictating how you spend your 50k with those strings attached.

If she wants to give you 50k towards your mortgage that's fine, she should just do so but no way has she a right to tell you it's on condition you leave yourself with no savings or security if unexpected repairs/needs crop up.

It’s not an all or nothing thing. You could pay a chunk off your mortgage or overpay every month (mortgage terms allow) to bring your interest payments down over the life of the mortgage.

m or if you’re due to remortgage look into an offset mortgage.

If you’re worried about frittering it away monthly money you could be saving why not put £10k into your mortgage and then save the equivalent your payment goes down for a year to sanity check you can stick to it and not spend it. Then reassess in a year.

Just on the mortgage vs other investments front, I totally agree.

If we had the money to pay off the mortgage now I'd rather pay some off to keep our repayments the same but reduce the time left to pay, and use the rest for something else (savings, amazing holidays, home renovations etc). If we put the whole thing on the mortgage, we (my husband) would fritter away the monthly amount saved and we'd have nothing to show for it.

I also wouldn't want to be controlled. But what stops you accepting the 50K and paying that off the mortgage but not the rest? Or paying it all off then remortgaging in 6 months/when the rates drop? Would your husband be up for that?

Her gift of £50k is conditional on you using your own £50k in a way which she sees fit, which is the issue.

I would not be blackmailed by MIL that cost is quite high. I wonder though if there is an option to move your mortgage to an offset with your bank? I had such an account for years and in reality the money rests in the mortgage and can be drawn down at anytime literally by clicking a few buttons. Might be worth considering?

I'm with you OP. A gift with strings attached, that you don't really need, isn't really a gift.

There are two completely separate questions here. One is whether OP should take MIL's money, which has to be up to her given all the strings, and the other is what might be the most sensible thing to do with the first £50k, where we might be able to provide some insight from our own financial experience.

I think the second question depends on things like how long the mortgage has left to run, what the interest rate is, etc. If it's fixed at 1.5% for a long period then the £50k would probably be better invested in something else. You can get structured investments that will give you 99% certainty of 2% return, or 90% certainty of 3%, etc etc. But if OP is currently paying 4–5% it would tip the scales in favour of paying off a chunk of the mortgage. Equity is also rainy-day money, whether you realise it via release or simply have lower monthly payments which will help if you have to reduce your work hours.

So you have the option of 50k to pay off mortgage or no gift of money? I would take the 50k to pay off the mortgage.

You can always set up a direct debit into a high interest savings account.

Tell mil you will invest her 50k with your 50k see if the interest earned is more than the interest on the mortgage

This is not much to do with the pros and cons of paying off the mortgage. It's all about accepting a £50k gift from a manipulative person.

The strings seem really weird to me. Why would she be prepared to give you £50k now if you put your savings in too, but not to bring down your balance and reduce your monthly outgoings and/or shorten your mortgage term considerably? Maybe your husband could ask if she'd do the latter instead (so you can keep a buffer for emergencies, uni fund etc) and see what she says.

I totally get why you might prefer to just not go there at all, but it's not an argument you will win on financial arguments alone. £50k plus the saved interest is a lot.

That's really not true at all.

That's because all financial advisors are obsessed with pensions and nothing else

a FA isn't going to make any money from you paying off your mortgage, they will from selling you a pension or other goods

our house is old so don't really want to "invest" in it

This bit really stood out to me because you've already paid off most of your mortgage and your house will be worth significantly more than what you paid for it originally.

Your house is already an investment and you should look after it. It will be much more expensive to keep on top of modernisations and repairs if you aren't doing it on an ongoing basis (replacing a boiler now will be cheaper than replacing it in 5 or 10 years for example), and you can easily end up with 100k or so more off the selling price when you do sell because you haven't kept on top of things.

I certainly wouldn't sell my soul for £50k.
It seems your MIL knows too much already about your finances. She knows you have £50k in savings and £100k left on your mortgage.
You may love your husband but are you his priority? Why does his mother seem to know so much about your (his and yours) financial affairs? You need to have a serious chat with him about what information he is giving his parents. Maybe time to have new boundaries established when it comes to them. From what you've said you seem to be in a position where you are constantly having to push back. Enough is enough!

I will give you a gift if you do what I tell you to with money that is yours - its extremely controlling and is not a straightforward gift - added to that there will be other consequences for accepting the gift, that really isn't how life should be.

A no thank you on repeat is needed.

If dh wants to accept money then it can't be on the terms that you have to do xy and z with money that is yours

That's because all financial advisors are obsessed with pensions and nothing else.

It isn't a binary choice, you can easily keep back £10k for emergencies. For £100k mortgage you are paying around £500/month? You could then be mortgage free in just over a year while retaining a nest egg for all emergencies.

Solicitors can draw up a letter for you to confirm that any MIL money is a gift free and clear of obligations. it is up to your DH to control situations if she is asking for more time than you are comfortable giving; while you want less contact it seems very unlikely thay he will be more or less inclined to see his own mum if she gives him some money. Could you articulate better why you think the money would affect what your DH does please?

People often think investments will deliver more than they do, a financial crisis arises and it's all "woe is me" that the 10% turned out to be high risk and their savings have been halved instead. I would suggest that you set up the emergency fund, pay off the mortgage, set up regular pension top-ups, and only then gamble with money you can afford to lose.

Yep. I mentioned offset mortgage earlier in the thread but no one picked up on it.

We have one with Coventry BS.

We have around £150k mortgage remaining with the full amount offset by savings.

Our other investments are less liquid - but bring much higher returns - and we like to have the £150k available if ever needed.

To be honest, £100k would be more than enough for a rainy day, so we probably should take some of the offset savings and invest that too, which at current ROI on our other investments would still earn double what it's saving us in mortgage interest!

No worries.

Paradoxically, it is often the most risk averse people that take some of the largest risk by tying up money in a property and leaving themselves vulnerable to unexpected short term expenses. People understand 'risk' in financial terms as maybe the volatility of a particular investment. That's not wrong, its part of it, but its broader than this.

Yes, the budget is a concern. We're getting a lot of phone calls. All we can do is wait and see. Its the uncertainty that is causing the most anxiety.