To not go to a friend’s party because she still owes me money?

if you watch the Judge Judy’s and judge Rinder programmes these sort of things happen all the time. People trust their mates and so don’t do the usual due diligence and then get let down. Tale as old as time.

I am surprised the lady in question didn’t insists on a loan agreement. At the moment with no written agreement it looks like income so she might be investigated for not declaring . She would need evidence to back up what it is!

Stay away from the party, as you clearly resent her, (with good reason).

Try and get the loan formalised, and ask her to start paying in instalments. If she can afford a fancy party, she can afford to start repaying the loan.

If nothing happens, then find out which professional body she is with and report her. She should not be borrowing money from her clients.

and find a new financial advisor, as this one is not acting in your best interests.

Apart from those who think this is an April Fool - as it's hard to believe anyone would be so daft as to 'lend' someone £40k they couldn't afford to lose, and without any formal loan agreement, am I the only one wondering how the hell this would pass any financial checks with the mortgage company/solicitors doing the legals for the friend's son's house purchase?
Having gone through the checks for my own DS's house purchase, because we funded a Help2Buy account for him over a number of years, I'm mystified how some random friend of parents giving £40k would pass the checks. Which makes me also think this has to be an April fool!

Legal proceedings against what though?

£40k she will say is a gift and you have no evidence to the contrary.

could they be having an affair?

As others have suggested it's probably a good strategy to be as nice and friendly as possible, let her think she's got away with it and that you trust her completely. That way she is more likely to let her guard down and it'll be easier to out maneuver her.
If she knows how pissed off you are she'll start putting things in place to make it harder for you to act against her.

You could check whether Financial Advisers have a professional body and threaten to report her if she turns nasty. As previous posters have said, she would certainly never advise her clients to lend money to friends/family without a watertight legal agreement for repayment in place. What she has done could be considered professional misconduct so the lack of a legal agreement could go against her.

Are you sure your DH lent it to her and hasn't gambled it/spent it or something else and he's lying about it? I cannot believe that anyone would lend someone 40K and the fact that you talk about 'breaking up with her' is bizarre too.

I'm not assuming affair or anything like that.

I think that DH has been flattered to be asked to lend the money. He was happy showing off to this person whom he perceived as superior to himself.

Unfortunately that is precisely how gullible fools get scammed.

No doubt she presented this as just a teeny tiny amount of money. Not worth her asking for a loan from the bank for. A tinkly laugh will also have been deployed.

The reality is that she is probably up to her eyelids in debt with a dreadful credit rating. I'm a similar age and profession and could easily raise £40k in a couple of days.

I would ensure that I had a record of such conversations either in writing or recording secretly as they demonstrate that she regards it as a loan to be returned, even if the end date isn't somewhat unclear. He needs to push her for a date for repaying the loan, with interest.

@SpaceMoo literally has said in the comments above yours, no loan agreement 🤦🏼‍♀️

I'm sorry OP but I think it's too late. The time to get something in writing was before the money left his bank account.

You can try the small claims court but with nothing in writing I think you're on a hiding to nothing.

What on earth possessed your husband to do this? Is he stupid in other ways?

I think you need to take full control of the family finances as a condition of staying married to him. If his attitude to savings is that they are burning a hole in his pocket to the extent that he just gives them away to some random person rather than, I don't know, buying a new car (in which case at least you'd have an asset, albeit a depreciating one) then he simply can't be trusted with the password to the online banking.

So she’s a ‘financial advisor’ who

• knew you had a pot of money suddenly available
• got your DH alone to talk him into giving her a large, undocumented loan
• took that money with absolutely nothing in writing to suggest it was a short term loan and not an outright gift
• did nothing to safeguard your interests or give you a legitimate timeframe, because ‘trust’ and because ‘friends’
• knows you’re now paying interest on loans (ie subsidising her cheeky fuckery and her wealthy family even further) because she’s shamelessly taken your savings and left you with your backs against the wall
• is taking business class holidays and throwing lavish parties whilst leaving you in debt
• has suggested you remortgage your home (what the ever-living actual fuck?!) to cover the deficit caused by her

She wouldn’t be the first highly respected, known-in-the-community FA who turns out to be a crook living high on the hog off other people’s hard-earned money, OP. There are plenty of them about, and they often involve friends and family in their scheming. Sounds like her financial chops are mainly directed towards feathering her own nest - being plausible enough to part fools from their cash and doing it so smoothly they don’t realise they’ve been done until it’s too late.

You need legal advice asap, and you also need to start keeping a running tally of what her ‘interest free loan’ is actually costing you in interest on other loans. The whole thing is mad as fuck and you’ve both been unbelievably gullible. I hope you get at least some of it back, but honestly, it doesn’t look good, does it?

My advice is that you would be crazy to push the angle of wanting a legal document at this point.

Kindly OP, you are so angry (and rightly so) that you are wanting tomapproach this like a bull in china shop and rhst approach will not end well for you.

If you corner her at then party, she will cry, she will be the victim and you will make things 10 times worse.

I would be friendly, actually friendly. Start up a text chat askingnof you cam bring anything to the party, go to the party, put on a happy face and text her after thanking her for the party and laugh about how fun it was. Casually message for a few weeks. Then lead into a conversation about how the house sale is going, how you were hoping you'd have the £40k you lent back in X back by now but understand the delay and say something about it how long it's been and how you had expected it back by Y and you'd really now like it by Z. But..this is key... you need to be friendly and like its a chat. She must acknowledge that there is a debt, how much for, and when you expected it back. Without that she will say its a gift and you're fucked.

Get the money back by legal means after that once you have proof of the loan amd have sought legal advice.

Then divorce your husband.

Absolutely! Savvy on her part not to pay the interest! Let your mug of a dh do it. Make contact- suss out the lat of the land, maybe hint at her reputation of this gets out, and if all else fails go to the party prepared with some not so subtle comments

Presumably others trusted this financial advisor because they are an expert in finances.
It did not occur to them that being an expert in finance means you know just how little others understand and how easy is to fool them😬🤦🏻‍♀️

Aside from the sheer folly of lending this money in the first place I would go to the party in order to case the joint and see what I could repossess to offset the money I had lost.

💯 agree. financially illiterate is exactly the right phrase. 'Friend' being a financial advisor/planner wouldn't have advised her clients to do this. And she most certainly wouldn't have made such a foolish decision herself. So she was happy for your idiot dh to do something she knew was a very bad move. Some friend she is.

This. See how your nutcase of a husband likes THEM apples.