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 :-(

It's difficult, if I bought a house for one of my kids and I thought they were taking the piss with repayments I would not be happy. In a bit of a similar situation with DD2 to be honest.

I think you need to ask your Dad how much repayment he would like each month and meet that. Then every time he comments on your spending simply say, "I'm paying you what you asked for Dad, what I do with the rest is up to me." And close him down.

You could throw in a bit of flannel about how he's always been a great example of thriftiness to you if you want to butter him up.

With the greatest of respect Grubs you and your DH have prioritised lifestyle over basic financial management. From a starting point of £600 rent per month your payments have dropped with each child by £200. This would be fair enough if the priority was keeping a roof over your head whilst your children were young however you both then prioritised car payments over reinstating the higher rent to your dad.

I earn more than your DH but I could not justify spending 25% of my net salary each month on car payments, especially when spending only 10% of net salary on housing.

With an unbearable DF (as stated in your OP) my top priority would have been saving any spare cash to fund a move. I'm sorry to be harsh but I think you need to see things from your dad's perspective, because from the outside looking in, it does appear that you have prioritised other spending over paying rent to him, partly because you have been able to. Yes, your dad may make disparaging comments but this is surely in frustration at the financial choices you are making. In the real world, reducing rental payments to a third of the original agreed amount would have resulted in an eviction.

OK, I see the car loan is only a small part of the debt repayments, the rest was for boiler and roof. Sit down and go through it with him. He just might be feeling resentful, and that you're ungrateful. He's carrying your family, you really need to recognise that you wouldn't have been able to survive without his help.

I've recently made a load of changes to our outgoings OP, in order to adjust to having a smaller salary. Things I've done, that might help you, are:

Switched to SIM-only phone
Switched energy provider
Switched broadband provider
Switched buildings & contents insurance policy at renewal (and will be doing the same when car insurance is due)
Cancelled all subscriptions to entertainment packages (I kept Netflix at £10 a month because we actually use it and you need some enjoyment in life!)

These things alone have saved me nearly £300 a month.

Assuming the gift/tax situation wasn't an issue - and you'd need financial advice on that - I'd be tempted to sell up, pay your dad the £217,000 owed to him and with the ~£50,000 left over I'd pay off your loans and use the rest as a deposit on a much smaller house or flat, using the £500 currently going on loans + £200 you're currently paying in rent to cover the mortgage.

I don't really understand you. You say you were FORCED to go into this housing arrangement but then you say you have no possibility of affording to buy or rent.

You are not actually stuck in anything you can't get out of and you have not put yourself in a position where you have lost out or are worse off in any way.

Either you sell up, take your equity and sort yourself out on your own or you carry on living in the house he bought you and put up with his annoying ways. Nothing is stopping you from selling up and getting out of this situation other than that you can't afford to/want to. But that is exactly what landed you here. You can't have it both ways. Do what everyone else does who does not have a parent willing to buy a house for you to live in and figure out your own life. If he really is an unbearable as he sounds then get out of the house. If you are not willing to then suck it up. You are by most people's standards very lucky to have somewhere to live on low rent.

Jeepers friend has bought a £50k car, their payments are no more than that. £500 a month is daft. The more I read the more I think you are not awfully good with money so need to rethink your lifestyle. Or just crack on as you are and swallow your pride.

No the reduced amount came completely from him because he didn't want us to be struggling with money when the kids were young. It came from a very kind place initially. We've offered many times to pay more and he refuses and says theres no need but then throws it in my face at other times!!

We live in a low wage and low house price area. My dad wanted to buy us a home that would last until the kids were adults so he insisted on buying a very large 5 bed detached. It costs a lot to run. The utility bills and council tax are very high.

If we moved to a smaller property ourselves we could reduce all of these outgoings

Do you have the money to pay inheritance tax?

Well presumably everything would just go to the OP's mum without inheritance tax.

If it is a genuine gift i don't think you have to pay inheritance tax if more than seven years have passed. However it's not a genuine gift if you are paying it back.

I will get some financial advise ASAP I think. Am I best returning to the solicitor who we used to do the house purchase?

Not if he is your Fathers solicitor.

😄 I can just imagine what the replies would be like if a regular poster here had posted "I bought a house for £250,000 and put it in my daughter's name. She and her DH started repaying £600 a month, but have steadily reduced the amount 'til it's now only £250 a month. AIBU to feel that they're CF who've taken my generosity for granted? Also, they now have an attitude whenever I try to talk to them."

Financial advice on the tax / gift situation on the house: you need an independent financial adviser.

Financial advice on cutting outgoings: save your money and log onto moneysavingexpert.com.

for goodness sake... THE CAR REPAYMENTS ARE NOT 500.

WE HAD TO TSKE OUT LOANS FOR A NEW BOILER AND ROOF!

My OH has a grumble about what the kids spend their money on sometimes. Two are married. I tell him to zip it. Their lives, their business.

And again because people aren't reading my updates......

No the reduced amount came completely from him because he didn't want us to be struggling with money when the kids were young. It came from a very kind place initially. We've offered many times to pay more and he refuses and says theres no need but then throws it in my face at other times!! I fact we've insisted to pay more.

If w

as it was more than 7 years ago, you don't have to worry about inheritance tax.

your outgoings seem very high. i'd definitely look at reducing them.

your dads attitude isn't great, but as you couldn't afford the rent in your local area, he has done you a huge favour. you can't accept his gift and continue to reap the benefits then cut him off, it's a bit unfair.
to really rid yourself of him, you'll need to sell up, repay him what you owe, and stand on your own two feet. then he has no say anymore and you will no longer feel obliged to listen to what he has to say.

You could always say...
we've had x number of years living in a nice house we wouldn't have been able to afford ourselves. and we really appreciate your generosity.
Thank you very much Dad, but now we want to stand on our own feet.
We're signing the house back over to you, and moving out and renting elsewhere.

If the house was bought outright as a gift from your DF more than 7 years ago (and all paperwork and deeds reflect this) then no inheritance tax is due.

Gifts are not counted towards the value of your estate after 7 years.
www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax/gifts

Sell up, give exactly what was paid and not a penny more and move ASAP. The happiness of you and your family is worth more than any of this.

So, your father bought a house and put it in your name? Over the past 10 years you have repaid him £33,000?
You have paid for a new roof on this property and a new boiler?

The running cost are more than you can comfortably afford.

If I were you, I would sell this house, pay back £217K to your father, buy a house you can afford to live in, and definitely keep your father, and his 'generosity' at arms length.

Even if he said reduce payments by that amount you could have been saving at least some of that money to pay him back or for general savings for when your boiler broke or you needed a new roof.

OP you have been very passive and you need to start taking control of your own life.

Ha ha I'd love to hear the other side of this.

What on earth are you spending £600 a month on to count it as household bills?

Gas?
Electricity?
Phone/Broadband?
TV Licence?
Water?
Insurance for house and car (how much is the car insurance?)
2 x mobile contracts under £30?

If there's things like Netflix/SKY Sports & Movies in that, they need to go, straight off.

You're paying about £50 a week to your father. There is no way two grand a month shouldn't be plenty, even with loans for essential improvements and a car - unless there has been a significant amount of 'lifestyle' spending - which are the sort of things that somebody might interpret as 'listening to mates' about; fancy car (ie, over £1500), extra TV packages, lots of decorating/appliances, holidays or something like ponyriding, ballet or expensive sports.

If I'd banged out a quarter of a million on helping out a kid, I'd be pretty miffed if (for example) the dozy partner then went out to buy a car that looks significantly prettier/newer than a little runaround.

I wouldn't sign it over, I'd sell it, pay back the 217k and walk away with the balance of 53k (assuming house is now worth 270k). You could then try for a mortgage to buy another house given you are going to be earning more money soon, and use the 53k as a deposit.