To not go to a friend’s party because she still owes me money?

[SpaceMoo]

They are DH’s friends really more than mine, and have borrowed money from us to help out their son buy a house. That was a year ago. She’s now having a massive 50th party and is very keen for us all to go. She’s also been on holiday (flying business class she raved to us - it was a gift apparently.) We’ve asked for the money back three times now and she said it’s so hard to take out loans and her other property didn’t sell, problems with tenants etc.

Anyway, I would prefer to cut her off and get solicitors involved. DH trusts her he said and thinks they’re just putting the house on the market and will give the money back. He sees her more often than me as they work close by. He doesn’t want to end it and thinks I’m being petty, it’s just a matter of time. In the meantime she advised us to remortgage our property (which me and DH argued about and a) I resent the arguing and b) point blank refused.

It’s time to get solicitors involved I feel. (Money amount 40k)

I bet this happens more than we think

Go and ruin the party

If you're in the UK, check the FCA register to ensure she is an authorised person. If you approach her and say she has 7 days to return the monies and if she doesn't you'll be reporting a complaint to the FCA, it might get your money back but it will likely also burn the friendship bridge!

Just as a follow up, are you totally sure your H made it clear this was a loan not a gift? Occurred to me given his already batshit behaviour, he may have actually just given her the money and is only saying ‘loan’ to you, not her. Might explain why he’s not pushing for it back.. if that’s the case, and you divorce him (as you fuckin should if he’s done this), make sure the money comes back to you from his finances!

I think you’ll find that you’re not the only friends that have lent them money. £40k is a huge amount. I wouldn’t even lend that to my family. The friend is hoping you will ‘forget’ about it and slowly fade away. Your dh is an idiot thinking he’ll get it back.
Just go to the party, then you can dig with their other friend how much exactly they’ve extracted from you all.

Pretend to be her friend until she sells the house and you get the money back. Them dump her and your husband and sail off into the sunset with your half of the money. What a tool he is. Who lends money they have borrowed to someone else?!

My tenants were also heading to court but then thank god left on the date specified. They did not allow the agent to take photos/do viewings/put the house on the market (sadly within their rights, some pp will remember this is idiot aggressive alcoholic/dv bloke who has SS involvement). When he left, the house immediately went on the market (May) but didn't sell/complete until the October. It will be months before she is able to sell/give back the money. I'd see her now and ask for it back, preferably in some written form. I very much doubt, if she has told you it's dependent on the sale, that you will see the money until autumn.

This is genuinely one of the most bonkers things I’ve ever seen on here. How do you just lend £40k to someone with no loan agreement? How did she even know to ask and why on earth didn’t someone say no. The whole thing is outrageous. You’re sat on debt from your renovation and presumably gaining no interest on your £40k.

This choice has probably cost you £2k in lost interest/growth plus the debt interest you’re paying. And that’s if you even get it back.

You must have some text messages/WhatsApps that refer to this loan. Even you talking to you husband saying something along the lines of “Did you speak to Mrs CF about that £40k?”. Something. Get all the evidence together that you can then sit down and write your version of events detailing when the money was paid, any discussions prior to that happening, how many times you’ve asked for it to be repaid etc.

Fine that she has to wait until she sells her BTL before she has the whole £40k, but I can guarantee that they’d have £5k to pay you back a bit before that. No reason why she can’t pay you back what they can in installments.

She won’t sign an agreement now, as then you’ll have something in writing. She’s a dodger so she’s not going to do anything that commits her to replying not on her term. Get all your evidence together then send an email laying out how you lent her £40k and it’s now time to pay it back and you’ll accept partial payment with, eg, full payment to be made within 6 months. If she’s calls you to discuss the email, you reply to her in the email reiterating what she said to you so you’ve got a written record of her words (“…as per our conversation earlier today…”). If she doesn’t reply to an email I’d assume she doesn’t want anything in writing to implicate herself.

Is the son actually divorced? If he’s not, his wife may end up with £20k of your money. If he’s used your cash for his deposit they’ve probably also committed mortgage fraud as he’ll have had to sign something saying the deposit money was a gift and not a loan.

Looking at it another way; wouldn't a financial advisor find it difficult to explain in court why someone gifted her £40 grand without any paper trail?

She doesn't need the tenants out of the house to put it on the market! She can list it for sale anyway.

This sounds awfully messy. I don’t want to make you any more anxious than you already are, but I used to work for a FA firm that had basically had one of the FAs and one of the admin scamming people out of money in the personal time. Without going into too much detail, it was family, friends and friends of friends that they were scamming. They were doing deals of an evening in the bar/restaurant after work and people trusted them for the exact reason your DH trusts this woman. Some people will risk their career and integrity if they think they can get away with it. I won’t divulge exactly how it all ended for the people I know who were doing it, but it was a really shit ending for all concerned. I only say this because I think your DH has been incredibly naive and stupid really. Really hope you get this sorted out. Good luck x

This. See how your nutcase of a husband likes THEM apples.

💯 agree. financially illiterate is exactly the right phrase. 'Friend' being a financial advisor/planner wouldn't have advised her clients to do this. And she most certainly wouldn't have made such a foolish decision herself. So she was happy for your idiot dh to do something she knew was a very bad move. Some friend she is.

Aside from the sheer folly of lending this money in the first place I would go to the party in order to case the joint and see what I could repossess to offset the money I had lost.

Sorry to the guys who said not to show DH this thread. Mumsnet has solved many of our problems in the past.
DH has said he will get something in writing from her and I asked why should he be getting scared about getting a simple email or legally binding document from her to say she owes us 40k unless he suspects she’s going to say no, or she’s going to cause problems. Better before the party? He has agreed to ask her for something in writing.

Presumably others trusted this financial advisor because they are an expert in finances.
It did not occur to them that being an expert in finance means you know just how little others understand and how easy is to fool them😬🤦🏻‍♀️

Absolutely! Savvy on her part not to pay the interest! Let your mug of a dh do it. Make contact- suss out the lat of the land, maybe hint at her reputation of this gets out, and if all else fails go to the party prepared with some not so subtle comments

I showed DH this. He agreed. Thank you.

So she’s a ‘financial advisor’ who

• knew you had a pot of money suddenly available
• got your DH alone to talk him into giving her a large, undocumented loan
• took that money with absolutely nothing in writing to suggest it was a short term loan and not an outright gift
• did nothing to safeguard your interests or give you a legitimate timeframe, because ‘trust’ and because ‘friends’
• knows you’re now paying interest on loans (ie subsidising her cheeky fuckery and her wealthy family even further) because she’s shamelessly taken your savings and left you with your backs against the wall
• is taking business class holidays and throwing lavish parties whilst leaving you in debt
• has suggested you remortgage your home (what the ever-living actual fuck?!) to cover the deficit caused by her

She wouldn’t be the first highly respected, known-in-the-community FA who turns out to be a crook living high on the hog off other people’s hard-earned money, OP. There are plenty of them about, and they often involve friends and family in their scheming. Sounds like her financial chops are mainly directed towards feathering her own nest - being plausible enough to part fools from their cash and doing it so smoothly they don’t realise they’ve been done until it’s too late.

You need legal advice asap, and you also need to start keeping a running tally of what her ‘interest free loan’ is actually costing you in interest on other loans. The whole thing is mad as fuck and you’ve both been unbelievably gullible. I hope you get at least some of it back, but honestly, it doesn’t look good, does it?

My advice is that you would be crazy to push the angle of wanting a legal document at this point.

Kindly OP, you are so angry (and rightly so) that you are wanting tomapproach this like a bull in china shop and rhst approach will not end well for you.

If you corner her at then party, she will cry, she will be the victim and you will make things 10 times worse.

I would be friendly, actually friendly. Start up a text chat askingnof you cam bring anything to the party, go to the party, put on a happy face and text her after thanking her for the party and laugh about how fun it was. Casually message for a few weeks. Then lead into a conversation about how the house sale is going, how you were hoping you'd have the £40k you lent back in X back by now but understand the delay and say something about it how long it's been and how you had expected it back by Y and you'd really now like it by Z. But..this is key... you need to be friendly and like its a chat. She must acknowledge that there is a debt, how much for, and when you expected it back. Without that she will say its a gift and you're fucked.

Get the money back by legal means after that once you have proof of the loan amd have sought legal advice.

Then divorce your husband.

I'm sorry OP but I think it's too late. The time to get something in writing was before the money left his bank account.

You can try the small claims court but with nothing in writing I think you're on a hiding to nothing.

What on earth possessed your husband to do this? Is he stupid in other ways?

I think you need to take full control of the family finances as a condition of staying married to him. If his attitude to savings is that they are burning a hole in his pocket to the extent that he just gives them away to some random person rather than, I don't know, buying a new car (in which case at least you'd have an asset, albeit a depreciating one) then he simply can't be trusted with the password to the online banking.

@SpaceMoo literally has said in the comments above yours, no loan agreement 🤦🏼‍♀️

This is how DH feels. I feel like the party is a leverage. She will have all her colleagues and everyone there, really wants us there. We should get something before this? If not, we do not go to the party and start legal proceedings?

I would ensure that I had a record of such conversations either in writing or recording secretly as they demonstrate that she regards it as a loan to be returned, even if the end date isn't somewhat unclear. He needs to push her for a date for repaying the loan, with interest.