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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to feel tricked and taken advantage of?

508 replies

OohMavis · 09/02/2016 14:28

I'm a cakemaker. Valentines is a busy time of the year, but last week DH's brother asked me to make a cake for his girlfriend, so him being family, I fit him in last minute with a discount, price was agreed last week.

He came to pick it up today but instead of paying me, he's told me to ask DH for the money, because DH borrowed it from him Angry and off he went with his cake.

I had no idea DH owed him money. It was for some tickets to a show they went to together which his brother bought on his card for convenience. DH just forgot about it.

AIBU to feel as though he's basically got a free cake out of me, and feel really bloody annoyed and tricked? I'm not going to be paid for the cake (our finances are completely joint, BIL knows this, it would be utterly pointless for DH to pay me). My time has been wasted. I turned down a paying order for him.

Just so angry!

OP posts:
diddl · 09/02/2016 17:58

"but you also paid out for materials and ingredients to make his cake so have repaid him even more?"

Well presumably OP took that into account when offering BIL "mates rates".

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 17:58

How the money is paid and the books are balanced is NOT the BIL's decision to make. It's the OP's.

No - this is completely not true in a business environment. If a business-person was owed money under a contract of course they would be within their rights to insist on offsetting any monies they owed against this! If you owe a business debt that has come to term of course you CAN say to your supplier, "actually I'd rather not pay right now.. but I'd like you to pay me..." but they're likely to say no (or demand a higher interest rate).

Presumably the cake business is not a company. So in fact, from a legal perspective, the OP and her DH are personally liable for business debts, and conversely, creditors could recover debts owed by the OP and DH personally from the business account (obviously this would be different if the cake business is incorporated but it doesn't sound like it is very separate so I'm assuming not). The BIL is completely in his rights.

3WiseWomen · 09/02/2016 17:58

ivy the problem is that it's not the OP's business who is owning money to her BIL.

ivykaty44 · 09/02/2016 17:58

Flippinada, if my dds or dp came to work and had goods on account and then the account was paid from my wages then that would be fine - we would have had the goods so why should my boss be out of pocket?

Permanentlyexhausted · 09/02/2016 17:59

I get it OP.

The cake should have cost him £60 but, because he is family, you effectively gave him £30 by knocking that off the price you charged him. That should have been the cancelling out of your DH's debt. But what has actually happened is that he's had another £30 out of you too by not paying anything.

I'd be tempted to tell them they still owe you £20. Since the cake should have been £60 and your DH owed them £40, there is £20 left to pay.

ElderlyKoreanLady · 09/02/2016 17:59

3wise then the DH can transfer the money to the business account. Problem solved the way rational people do these things

DoJo · 09/02/2016 18:00

If you had provided a service for somebody on the agreement that they paid for it and then they just decided not to, wouldn't you be upset and pissed off? I know I would.

Not if they had arranged for someone else to pay for it, I wouldn't. Especially if that person lived with me and I had access to their bank account so I could be absolutely sure I would be getting the money back.

roundaboutthetown · 09/02/2016 18:00

I would be spectacularly pissed off if I made an effort for someone because I wanted to be nice and they then turned around to me and told me I should actually consider it a repayment of a debt my dh had accrued.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 18:00

I think implying that the op fiddles her taxes is a really twatty way to win an argument.

It was not mentioned to win any arguments.
Some pps said that she lost because of taxes. The OP was asked if she paid taxes on this. She didn't reply. Not that it made any difference to the outcome.

Even though many pps said it was important she received the money because of book keeping, she didn't mention anything about payment being important to keep books and having a business account (just "her" account). She said the money went from her cake account to her joint account. Surely a business account would need better management than that.
Not that it's relevant from my point of view. Just because so many used it as argument, it was important to clarify if that was the case.

ivykaty44 · 09/02/2016 18:00

No the problem is that the ops dp doesn't pay his debts and is a bad payer that is the problem

3WiseWomen · 09/02/2016 18:01

theycall the problem is that when you think like this, then it's easy to the move on to not make any difference between the business account and thee family account.
Which is madness on a business pov. Surely, the OP needs to know exactely how much she is spending on supplies and how much money she is making??

Lweji · 09/02/2016 18:01

ivy the problem is that it's not the OP's business who is owning money to her BIL.

It is, because her husband does. Shared finances and all that.

EweAreHere · 09/02/2016 18:02

YANBU to feel taken advantage of.

If BIL had walked into his bank and said: 'Hey, I'm not going to make my mortgage payment this month because my neighbour, who also banks with you, owes me enough to cover it. Get it from him!" He'd be losing his house.

Your BIL has behaved badly. Like a bank, your cake-making is your business, and he agreed to pay money to a business. He should have paid you, and you should tell him so. If your husband owes him money for a personal debt, he should get it from your husband directly.

Lweji · 09/02/2016 18:02

3WiseWomen

then she puts the amount in her books or pays her own account. As simple as that.

3WiseWomen · 09/02/2016 18:02

Elderly and you go back to my argument that the BIL has no respect for her as business as he thought that not paying her business was OK.

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 18:02

I think implying that the op fiddles her taxes is a really twatty way to win an argument. I thought some posters were better than that - I think the inference comes from the OP, where she says our finances are completely joint, BIL knows this, it would be utterly pointless for DH to pay me, implying that she is not planning to put the money into the business account, meaning it will not appear as income.

flippinada · 09/02/2016 18:03

ivy why then did BIL not say at the time "DH owes me money for x, can you provide this in lieu of him paying me back"? The fact he didn't do this upfront suggests to me that he was being deliberately underhanded.

OP, who is running a business (not a cake making charity) would then have been able to make an informed decision on whether to provide the cake or not.

And if she made the decision that no, she couldn't do it after all, that was her decision to make, because it's her business.

LeaLeander · 09/02/2016 18:03

I think some people are confusing a joint account with two different people turning into the same person... Pooling money into a joint account is not the same thing as deciding that the dh's debts should now be covered by his wife's cake business, his dw's time and his dw's effort. It also leaves a sour taste in the mouth to have what you believed was a favour into a debt repayment, so it's crap behaviour whether it is viewed as a business transaction or a kindness thrown back in your face...

This bears repeating.

roundaboutthetown · 09/02/2016 18:03

Even if the OP is a sole trader, it is her business, with a separate bank account, not a joint business with her dh. If it were, the dh could have made the bloody cake. Grin

theycallmemellojello · 09/02/2016 18:04

Surely, the OP needs to know exactely how much she is spending on supplies and how much money she is making??

Yes, of course! But she does know this. She made £30 on this cake, which she will record in her ledger and transfer from her personal to her business account.

PippaHotamus · 09/02/2016 18:04

The guy obviously feels hard done by that his bro didn't pay back the money for the tickets.

For some reason, he failed to ask directly for it, OR, he asked directly and the DH didn't pay it.

Maybe BIL thinks OP is in on it, stopping her DH from paying him back, or something?

Either way he is clearly going about getting it back in a devious manner. The OP had nothing to do with the debt, however the BIL has gone through her to get it back, which is not fair on her, because it involves her in whatever was going on between him and her DH.

This is something her DH needs to sort out with his brother, and they then need to apologise for involving the OP in their dispute. And never do it again.

It's ridiculous if they are both grown ups.

cuntycowfacemonkey · 09/02/2016 18:05

Oh come on you know what you were implying. Anyway it's pointless arguing with someone with such rigid thinking. You've made your point (repeatedly) so now it just looks like you're hanging around to give the OP a hard time

Sallystyle · 09/02/2016 18:05

YANBU OP

The debt was with your husband. Joint account or not, he had no right bringing your business into it without asking you first.

Like someone else said, he gave the OP no choice in the matter and that is the issue imo. I would not like to spend time baking a cake for someone and then be given no choice in how he decided to pay for it. It is underhand and he should have asked her if it was ok first, the money doesn't matter really, it's his attitude and it is not decent behaviour at all.

If I take photos for someone and dh owes that person money I would expect that to be a completely separate transaction unless I am asked otherwise and agree to it. If you are a decent person you don't get your SIL to bake a cake without being upfront about how you are intending to pay for it first.

Adeleslostbeehive · 09/02/2016 18:06

diddl

^"but you also paid out for materials and ingredients to make his cake so have repaid him even more?"

Well presumably OP took that into account when offering BIL "mates rates".^

I don't see how, the BIL took the cake saying DH owes me this so sort it with him.
I'm assuming the cake was sold at mates rates for say, £50 and DH owes BIL £50 so the OP doesn't make any money to cover materials or ingredients. Otherwise BIL would've had to make a part payment for it.

3WiseWomen · 09/02/2016 18:07

Nope Lweji, when she will make her account to HMRC, only the money going on the business account for the business is taken into account.

Whether they have a joint account or not has no relation with the business.

Serioulsy, I would hope that anyone who is self employed has a separate account for the business and is treating it with the respect you should have for a business.
And not by playing the 'let's move money from one to the other' as we please, because it's all the same thing anyway. That's the best way to have no idea about how much money you are making or not (and then realise a year on that either you are loosing money or that you have earnt more than you thougt and cant be paying your taxes).
Rigour is a very good qauliy to have as a business owner.