In-laws want their deposit back

[ArnosLeach]

I married 5 years ago and I have a three and a half year old and a nearly nine year old from a short lived relationship.

Full background as I am anticipating the questions I would want answering.

The nine year old sees their father once a month for a weekend. I assume that my ‘ex’ owns his house. He had a vasectomy before our child was born. We do not communicate on any level other than if arrangements need to change. He pays a set amount every month but every month will buy shoes/clothes etc.

We moved into the house my husband had bought fifteen years before. It has doubled in value. Following a miscarriage last year we are trying to conceive again and we are looking to move house. We mentioned this to the in-laws a fortnight ago. I did not know that they had provided DH with deposit.
They have now asked for twice the deposit back comprising the original sum and the proportion of what that deposit has added to the value.

They feel that my elder child will benefit from their largesse. We are both completely gutted by this. A bolt out of the blue.

I don’t think they’d have a leg to stand on unless it was formally agreed as a loan with repayment terms. They seem to think they’re some hotshot investors in a percentage of the ownership of the house. They sound utterly despicable and spiteful.

Frankly they’d be dead to me and they’d never be seeing any of the three GC again or their DH if it was our family. I hope they find lots of ways to make up for it with all their extra money.

I’m so sorry for your DH, he must be devastated. There were other ways this could have been dealt with.

When people show you who they are, listen to them.

But @JudgeJ if they were concerned they would have protected their money bet retaining an interest in the property. We need to know the legal position to offer any help. If they have protected it they’re entitled to ask for it back. If they gifted it it’s not their money anymore and it’s up to her DH how she shares with his wife.

This sounds so awful that I can’t help wondering if there’s more to it?

if they gave each child £80,000, did they over extend themselves and now need the money?

DH needs to sit them down and get to the bottom of it. Do they realise they’re disadvantaging him and their grandchild?

If they don’t need the money and it’s about protecting the money, can it be framed in a different way financially?

Have they always been antagonistic or is this new?

If you can afford to I’d return the £80k by way of a hand delivered cheque, I’d look them in the eyes and tell them they will never see you or any of your children again.

absolute scum bags

Even if the ex never has another child there is no guarantee that he wont remarry and leave everything to a spouse. Or all his money could go on a care home. Nothing is certain where inheritance is concerned

I was just wondering why the exes vasectomy was relevant!!

I can't see their point at all, did they expect that their son would stay unmarried for life? Was that a stipulation of the loan?

He would have lost 50% in a divorce regardless of OP's older child, from what OP's said it's more personal than that and it's the existence of the older child that's pushing them to this course of action.

Refuse to pay a penny back if it was a gift. if you fall out, so be it, you don't need people like that in your life

'We are in a state of shock.'

I find it amazing how only women usually trade up. You live in a 650k house almost mortgage free, you're about to upgrade. You've contributed nothing to the actual deposit or house, yes you do contribute to household living but only a 1/3. You also bring in another child from previous relationship which..... let's be black and white about it - is baggage.

I think you've done very very well here, and that's not sarcasm. Please enjoy your 'marry up' and let the husband pay back whatever, instead of being 'in a state of shock'

Ring fencing the original £80k for your dh's estate should be sufficient, but they sound pretty bad, sounds like they need to understand what a gift is

Your in laws are horrible people. I can understand them wanting to make sure their money benefits their own grandchildren and not someone else’s, especially as they know your older child will benefit from their own father, but the way they’re going about it makes no sense. It will be detrimental to their own son and grandchild for you to give them this much money now and that’s what shows they care more about money than family.

My maths is shit but I don’t understand how they think they’re owed double what they gave. Had the house really doubled in value?

They should have thought this through at the time they gave the money and if they didn’t sort it then, they don’t have a leg to stand on. Tell them to get fucked.

You only get increase in value legally if you draft a charge on the property with 'share of equity' - meaning rather than repayment of the monetary amount, they are recorded as having put a percentage investment into the property and receive a return percentage share of investment on sale. This would have had to be put in place at the time of the investment and documented to be legally effective. Even in this scenario you would seek to carve out any amount of the enhanced value that was due to your husband and your own improvements to the property.

They don't have a leg to stand on to claim 160k. Total opportunism.

They should be called out on this shameless behaviour.

If i was your DH I think i would write them a letter expressing my extreme disappointment in how they have approached this. I would say they have a choice, they can a continued relationship with me or they can have the 80k but not both and it is their choice.

This really must put people off giving deposits to their DC on the understanding it will be reimbursed when they make enough money to upsize and get a new home, as if you then need the money when you get older your DC go NC and you are punished. There seems to be little appreciation for DPs’ generosity in so many cases. Maybe better not toget involved at all in finances? We are at this exact stage and I worry the savings that have taken a lifetime to make will just get lost if DCs split up.

As a huge proportion of marriages and partnerships where people share homes end up splitting and divorcing it seems like a very big risk to give DCs money as it will definitely go out of the family. The only way around this I can think of is for both people in a relationship to contribute equallyinstead of someone moving in and taking advantage of someone who has saved and paid i to a mortgage.

I can’t believe they would be saying this if it was an unconditional gift to their son and DH needs to explain where his DPs are coming from with this.

The op and her DH are trying to conceive again. They've not split up.

If they signed a form / wrote a letter saying it was a gift for the deposit (which they would have to do), they have no legal leg to stand on. If it was a formal loan, they should have a formal loan agreement which includes that they will receive extra money if the house increases in value. It would be fair to ringfence the deposit as belonging to your husband though, and account for it within your wills.

I would give the money back

As a MIL and grandmother I often think ILs get a hard time on here. In this case I wouldn't give them the drippings off my nose. None of my children have stepchildren but two of my children have a stepfather i.e. my husband. He isn't perfect but he has always treated all the children the same, he has never treated GC differently in fact my eldest GS, technicially his step GC, and DH are very close and always have been. I often used to complain that he was spoiling him but when we got up to 8 GC he had to rein that in. I can't believe how horrible it is to view your 9 year old like that.

I'm sorry you are going through this so soon after a miscarriage, it is upset you don't need at this time.

So they didn't see the £80k as a gift then, they saw it as an investment! Unless their names are on the deeds, they can sing for any share in the equity. What a nerve!
I would either get DH to give them their £80k back and express his disappointment that clearly the gift wasn't a gift after all and trust that his siblings will similarly be repaying their gifts, then stop all contact with them, or not give them their money back at all and let them decide where they go from there. I assume they have no loan agreement or charge on the property, so they would be laughed out of court if they tried to sue for it.

I think you need to ask them, since they like to have these things worked out in monetary terms, how much they think having a relationship with your second child is worth? Clearly they don’t want to have a relationship with your first child, but do they think the possibility of not keeping the relationship with the second is worth £160.000? Would they settle for £80,000? Or would it be better to come to their senses and realise that relationships with blood and step grandchildren is not something you measure in cash terms.

If it was a gift and they’re only asking your husband for money purely because you have a child that isn’t his I’d be expecting him to tell them to kick rocks and cut them from your life.

I do kind of agree with this... OP has done well in this scenario.

So the original £80k was a gift from his parents. Nothing signed or any verbal agreement to pay this back at the time. Never mentioned until now? Id not pay them a penny tbh.

But surely once you give money, it is given - unless there is a legal agreement made at the time that stipulates what your child can and can't do with the money and they agree to that.

I think surely if you gift money to a (presumably) fairly young single child you can assume that that child will probably go on to form a relationship/marry.

Also even without the requested doubling (!!) 80k is a big chunk to take out of somebody's equity and would likely impact their ability to upsize unless their mortgage was almost completely finished.

@Mistlebough I disagree - it is either a gift or a loan. If it is a loan then document it on the purchase of the property. Simple and easy to do. Be up front about it.

Financially yes OP probably has done quite well in that she lives in a nice house and potentially may upgrade to an even nicer one if possible.

However, this demand - based solely on the existence of her older child - is so, so hurtful. I don't think I could move on from this in her shoes.

They are willing to disadvantage their own son and grandchild purely so that her child is stopped from benefiting from money they gave - it's spiteful.