Interfering dad causing hell

[Grubsmummy]

My dad is 70,he is a very controlling, opinionated person, a narcissist, everyone is wrong about everything, he is right.

I am mid 30s, married with 2 young kids, been with my husband for 17 years. I left home at 21 as couldn't bare to be with my dad any longer and me and oh rented a place.

Dad started to interfere and put pressure on us and 10 years ago, my husband and I ended up making (almost forced to) a rediculous, stupid decision to accept my dad's offer of buying us a home and us paying him reduced rent when i had the children . This sounds amazing, and i realise we are exceptionally lucky to have security in our home, but it was basically forced upon us. We should never ever have done it and i regret it every day.
At every opportunity my dad likes to bring up that we pay him a low rent, he doesn't think we should ever buy anything, go on holiday, have pets, decorate, anything we spend should be offered to him as extra rent. I feel like we can't live at all. We live very frugally, low priced food, buy clothes from charity shops, all our furniture is 2nd hand, old cars etc.

Im reaching the end of my tether now, ideally I want to go no contact with him for many many reasons, (my sister has already for the past 3 years) but can't because my poor mother would see noone and wouldn't see her grandkids. I want to sell up, give him the money back and break free, preferably in another part of the country but we can't because we are trapped by large outgoings. We don't have a spare penny to even afford the lowest rents or mortgages anywhere.

What the hell can we do to change this situation. We live 2 miles away from them so they watch over us with a magnifying glass. I'm concerned that he will start doing this with my kids when they are teens and start forcing cars and houses on them that come with conditions.
I know we are lucky and I am grateful but that doesn't mean we should have to live like this does it? Noone ever dares to say anything to him :-(

What are your outgoings? What is your income?
I'm sure there must be a way to work this out.

Did he give you the money outright, or does he have a mortgage himself for this ?

Or is there any mortgage at all ?

He’s 70 and you say a narc who has got his own way up until now
Do you actually think your relationship with him can change? It will only change for the worse and only if you stand up to him for once.
So you options are to put up with the situation and resign yourself to the fact that as a grown woman with a husband and children you still obey your father (god knows how your husband puts up with it) or fall out with him.

but i just want the relationship with my father to change. It makes me feel so sad that this hangs over everything all the time and I just want a nice dad and grandad to our kids

Yes thats what you really want and I wonder if in the same way he'd like to be a nice grandad ?. I hope so now I've got grandchildren I lurve 'em to bits little blighters sometimes, but wouldnt change that for the world and I still supply them in effect with a roof over their heads:-)

If I were in your position, I would be doing whatever I could to have more money coming in.
A few people have asked about yours and your dh's job and you haven't responded.
The only way out of this situation is to have more money coming in.
There isn't another solution.

What would you like to do?

Sell the house? Rent it to someone else? Move far, far away?

Set a goal and work towards it.

However, in the short term why don't you tell your dad that you regret the housing situation and does he have any ideas on how to resolve it? Seeing as he likes to interfere you could give him the opportunity to say what he thinks but what it might do is make him realise what a horrible thing all this is? (That might be a terrible idea, but I think you need to have a conversation with your dad about this-be the grown up, let him fall out with you, whatever it takes!)

Our monthly income is roughly £2000.
Our outgoings for bills, his rent and car payment comes to £1600 a month.

The money for the house was gifted. There is no repayment agreement at all. Just verbally agreed between us. We could stop at any time and i don't think there's anything he could do but that would cause hell and i don't want to stop paying him, of course he should be paid back for it as we are very grateful.
I just want to either give him the full amount back so we are not endebted to him anymore or for him to just stop bringing it up all the time.

Even if you gave it back he would still go on about it, you know that don’t you?

Was there a legal agreement drawn up at the time he paid for the house? Did he put it down as a loan or a gift? Was there documentation drawn up stating loan repayments? If the house is in your name you are not renting it from him. If your father gifted the money to you then sell the house and run as far away as you can. Definitely seek legal advice and bring any paperwork along with you to see if there is a way out of this. If it's a thing that he hasn't a legal leg to stand on, do Not feel morally obligated to stay there. As for your mother, maybe you could help her to leave him when you get out, but at the end of the day she needs to want that too. I'd definitely go no contact with him.

£1600 is a huge amount to be paying considering how low your rent is.

What are your other outgoings?

I don't understand why you're so poor, when you have said you pay a low rent. And I don't understand why you call it rent when you say the house is in both your names - are you saying your dad pays the mortgage/bought it outright and you are paying him back gradually? You would expect to spend 25 years repaying a mortgage - how long did you think it would take you to repay your dad?

My gut feel says jaw-jaw rather than start another war;!

Can you break down the £1600 OP?

Do you work?

I see it was a gift. We there tax implications? Find out if you sell up and gift the balance owed back to him what tax would be due by him. Not that it's your concern if he owes the tax man! Seriously, sell it, pay it back and tell him to fuck off out of your lives as your sibling has done. And again, you are not renting from him. It's your house.

madmum5811 can i ask what you mean? What bother would we be in?

There is no mortgage, it was cash. I think I will take your advice and actually speak to him directly about it, which will please him as it makes him feel important.

I will say because he keeps bringing it up all the time is he not happy with the situation? Does he want us to pay more? Does he not want us to continue? And if he says yes everything is fine then I shall politely and bravely request that he stops bringing it up all the time.

I think there's something amiss in your outgoings.
£2k income is pretty decent.
£1.6k on outgoings - rent £275 (or even cheaper, as that's the average you've paid, and you pay less now you have children).
So, that's £1,325 left for bills? That's quite a lot.
As a guide ours are (ish);
Council tax £200, gas/leccy £100, water £50, sky £100 - that's £450.

You need to cut your outgoings.

Cut phones to cheaper ones. Cut tv packages. Cut internet. If your rent. Which is £275. That means your other bills and car payments are £1375. Which is incredible. My outgoings are half that. Easily. Cut all the things you don’t NEED. There are ways out of this. You don’t need car payments that are more than £300 a month for example.

You aren’t living frugally. Simple as

Did he gift your sister too? Is that why she is NC?

I'm confused as to why your outgoings are so high? Maybe post a SOA (statement of affairs) in the Debt Free Wannabe section of Moneysavingexpert for some help. I hope you manage to sort something out.

OP if your rent is £275 per month (£33k divided by 120 months of living at the house), this means the rest of your outgoings are totalling £1325 per month, that's a lot! Are you able to detail your outgoings? Have you looked at switching energy suppliers etc?

I am not siding with your father at all however his comments about subsidising your family are fair comments. If rents in the area are approx £500 then he is supporting your family by the tune of £225 per month (in lost free market rental).

You need to do whatever it takes to get out of the house. Once you've done that, you don't need to entirely cut ties with your dad or your mum. You can still maintain enough contact so that you can see your mum.

Did your dad also put these sort of money conditions on your sister?

Give your father an ultimatum.
He takes a rent from you, he doesn’t own you.
Tell him you are willing to pay a fair rent, but that does not give him any control over your life.
If he doesn’t like the arrangement you will go nc with him, that doesn’t mean you will not see your mum, you and the gc will see her at times to suit you.
He is a bully, you’re a grown woman, stop letting him rule your life.

What have you got to lose? If he stops all contact with you, you won’t miss him, but he will miss out on seeing his grandchildren. Or, he will have to learn to keep his beak out.

Stop enabling him.