Friend will only pay me back if I allow her to live with me

[losca]

Two years ago I gave my friend a loan of £4k as she was in a precarious financial situation having not been able to break her lease when her MSc came to an end as she had anticipated (she was screwed over by landlord so I was very sympathetic as I experienced similar).

In contrast, I was living at home (moved back in during Covid) and was able to save so more than happy to help. My dad basically convinced me to give up a few years of my life in order to get on the property ladder in London.

My friend has known my plan has always been to buy a house and use rent from housemates to cover the rent (wish I had never shared my bloody life plan with her now). My friend also knows roughly what the mortgage will be -- foolishly shared Rightmove link with her.

I've lost a lot of respect for her as she has far exceeded the date we agreed that she would pay me back by. Anyway, I'm really shocked that she has essentially said she will only be able to afford to pay be back if she moves into my new house (rent is far below market rate).

There's no way I want to live with her due to the way she has conducted herself but I really feel like she is blackmailing me. She has slagged me off to anyone who will listen and shared my every detail of finances - savings, salary etc. to mutual friends.

I drafted a contract (independent witness also signed) but I'm worried it's meaningless. I cannot afford to walk away from the money as I need to set up home with it.

Being a socialist doesn’t mean you have to be a doormat. What to your socialist friends think of theft and blackmail? Are they actions that they approve of?

If you think responding to her WhatsApp post is too aggressive then try talking to other people in the group face to face, or at least by having a conversation. Explain how the post has upset you, make sure they understand what has led to it, say you are feeling pressured by her to do things that you are not comfortable about and ask what they think you should do. You don’t have to take their advice, but least they will understand ( I hope) that you have been put in a difficult position through your own misplaced past kindness .if nothing else it could stop them making the same mistake and lending her money.

to be frank I don’t think you are going to see your money again, even if you go through the small claims court it is not always an answer, the court has very limited powers to enforce judgements, and if she doesn’t have money, or has returned to her home country then even eventually going through baliffs is not going to help you.

She's bluffing she does not want to return home.
Hope you have by now received some money op.

@Itwasntevenblackpudding I know, I wanted to know the outcome 😬

Great if the OP comes back, but it doesn't seem very likely that she will as she didn't update at the time.

Now there are just loads of posts from people who have invested their time responding to the original OP from almost 3 months ago as if it were an on-going situation.

Did you get here via the "similar threads" feature? Not a goady question, just curious.

Quite possibly - not certain but may have clicked there

There were a lot of issues when MN introduced this new feature, it just threw up loads of zombie threads which ended up back in Active.

If anyone is interested, you can actually opt out of the "similar threads" feature.
There is a toggle button in your settings where you can opt not to see the suggestions.

You can also change your settings so that threads started more than 3 months ago don't appear in your Active feed. I opened this one as I have posted on it under another name and it popped up on my "I'm watching" list.

Didn't mean to derail the thread. Hope things worked out for OP in the end.