Money 'borrowed'

[Alice19876]

I got married three years ago. To my husband who is a tradie who works hard for our family while I stay home with our twins who are 18 months old.
I am very lucky to be a stay at home mom and my husband works very hard to provide for us we don't live beyond our means and have one holiday abroad a year and one year in England.
when we got engaged we planned a Cyprus wedding but due to Covid that fell apart and we lost about 1.5k in deposits.
due to this we decided to have a cheap uk wedding in December in a beautiful venue that does packages nothing I don't regret. Now here comes the issue, I'm an only child and when my parents were there during my engagement they was over the moon for me they even offered 10k to get married abroad and I was shocked but so thankful. But obviously due to Covid the wedding abroad it never went ahead. Since we moved the wedding to the uk and it coming a lot more my parents said it was ok the budget was still the same. While we paid other fees. ,then they made changes to the wedding ie the evening wedding food was a basic package but my dad wanted the upgrade to a hog roast which was 1.5k including other changes, my wedding dress they said not to worry so we went shopping for my dress I found a lovely one for £800 but my mom made me try on a 2.5k dress with a 1k veil and extras. But they reassured me, I'm their only child and little girl it's okay. Then added extras as their friends are coming, a harpist which they wanted etc so it came about 10k but we put the rest.

happy wedding and all good until yesterday. My parents informed me the wedding money they 'loaned' me they need back in a year. It wasn't ever a loan and I'm shocked. It's been 3 years and never mentioned once. My dad is taking early retirement this year which I don't blame him but they want the money to go on a cruise. As I mentioned I'm a stay at home mom to twins and also now another baby on the way. Where do I get this money from? When all along for 3 years plus the year before telling me not to worry. I feel sick, I have such a good relationship with my parents so I don't want this to affect our relationship. But I don't have a spare 10k they told me I shouldn't have gone on holiday this year and gave them the money instead but they have never mentioned this before!? If it was a loan it would've been paid back since we first got married. I can't sleep as I'm so worried. Aibu? Do I just take a loan out?

You’ll have to get a job so you can pay them back!

If I paid them anything back at all it would be just for what you choose. Would I heck give the extra money spent for the wedding dress or hog roast. I don't think they can state it wasn't a gift when you were pushed you into more expensive choices. By saying it's fine, your our only daughter, I think it was a gift but now they want to go on a cruise and don't have the money. Seems rather crappy behaviour though especially when you're pregnant and £100 as a wedding gift for your only child is mean in my opinion.

This, OP.
Do NOT accept or imply in any communication that you owe them ANY money.
Pay nothing.
Do not agree to repaying anything, under any terms.
Check everything they have said to you, make sure they haven't mentioned repayment or loan, and don't panic.
For a loan to be repayable there has to be an agreement between you. It sounds like there is nothing that remotely resembles a contract between you.
Talk to citizen's advice. Ask the question on the Mumsnet legal board.

Hey OP. You obviously can't possibly pay this back in a year, not least with maternity leave. I would speak directly to them and tell them that if they have changed their minds about the terms of the gift you will begin to pay it back in manageable installments, whatever that looks like. I would also tell them that their sneaky behaviour has fundamentally damaged your relationship and have as little as possible to do with them in the future.

Looks to me as if they've been living beyond their means and see you and your DH as the means to their next cruise. Out of interest, does your DH earn well? I wonder if that's influenced their thinking.

Fuck 'em. If they can't accept gradual repayment, let them try and prove it was a loan in court.

Thank you for this! I forgot to look to see what this "person" really wrote.

Sounds to me like it's someone who thinks her children should be her bank because she fed and clothed them for a few years. So, now they owe her. Probably draws up a loan contract if she goes to lunch with one of her children, if there are any unfortunate enough to share her DNA.

I wonder if you could work out which bits your parents upsized and take it off the total now owed. For example the cost of the original meal was x but your dad changed the order for a hog roast costing an extra 1.5k which you shouldn’t have to pay for.

part of me would be quite bloody minded and pay the whole thing back and minimise contact

Has your mum managed to get in contact with you on the phone?

Not many people have that option. I've 2K in savings and got it by going without. Anyone asking me for 10K would be very sorely disappointed.

You shouldn’t have to pay them back. It sounds like they gave you the money, then had a massive say in how to spend it. If it was a loan, then they really shouldn’t have upgraded to the hog roast, booked the harpist etc.

Legally it was not a loan.

No contract was entered into and therefore no repayments can be enforced legally.

No court would enforce this as a loan unless there is evidence that it was a loan.
Actions also matter. Do not act as though this is a loan. Tell them you thought it was a gift and it was presented as a gift. Tell them you have no means to pay this back.

The personal aspect is more difficult but they are being horrific doing this and I think you should remind yourself that they are the ones doing that to you and not the other way around. So it is them who should feel bad, and not you.

You can book a cruise for a lot less than 10k.
If they wanted the money for surgery then I’d try and give them something but it’s pretty clear this wasn’t a loan and they don’t need 10k for a cruise. Just tell them you haven’t got it.

Tell them to take it off your inheritance. They can't change their mind now, 3 years after they encouraged you to spend the money as if it was a gift.

Your parents sound awful. I would go and see them and make it clear that they told you it was a gift at the time of giving. Had they told you it was a loan you would not have accepted and would have kept the wedding within your original budget. List the extras that you didn't want but they did and the context around it. They will lose far more than you in this. Let them know if they want the gift repaying what payments you can make ie £10 a week. Don't refer to it as a loan and minimise contact. Enjoy your pregnancy, they should be embarrassed of their behaviour x

As I posted in reply to an earlier post saying the same ridiculous thing as you, OP is expecting another baby as well as having 18 month old twins. How easy will it be for her to get a job with a salary that will cover child care costs for three very young children and paying back the so-called 'loan' to her parents within a year?

She doesn't owe them the money. They never said that it was a loan. If it was a loan, why didn't they ask for the repayments to start straight after the wedding, three years ago, when OP was still working and didn't have any children?

Can you go back through your emails and WhatsApp/text messages to see if the use the word lend or give. Double check that

List for them every single expensive item and add-on that they pushed you into having on the promise that they wanted to pay for them. Ask them how any of that could conceivably be consistent with this being a loan.

Do you have texts and messages from that time? It could well be worth looking through them for any references to the money being a gift.

I must say, if as a parent the only money I had actually given towards my child's wedding was #100, I would be positively ashamed even to admit it.

We're the missed calls from your mum about the "loan" or was she calling to apologise?

This is definitely not a loan as you've described it. You spent more at their insistence. If they still insist on you paying, then absolutely do not pay for all of the upgrades they wanted and you didn't plan for in the original budget.

You don't owe them this money. This is so ridiculous I am finding it hard to believe.

If the dad needs care in old age the local authority will calculate his share of the house and apply it to care fees if he has to go into a home. I’d be getting his name off the deeds and pronto before the LA can accuse them of deprivation of assets.

Why on earth are you assuming they’re boomers ? I’m a boomer and did whatever I could to help out my children. It’s only on MN that boomers are responsible for all the ills in the world. Everywhere else they’re just lucky to have been born into a time of relative economic stability, and benefited from it.

I think you need to be very firm with your parents and tell them you were never given to understand that this was a loan to be paid back to them: your parents' actions at the time the wedding was being planned were all in line with it being a gift which they leveraged to have things they wanted in the wedding. Had they made it clear at the time that it was a loan to be repaid, then you would have had sole control over where the expenditure went so that you could adhere to a budget that you could afford to repay in the future. As it is you dipped into your own pockets to fund things edged out by your parents' preferences (guests/harpist/dress) etc. So with their contribution now termed a loan rather than a gift, the wedding has now cost you way more than you budgeted. Why on earth would any loving parent fuck their child over in that way?

This hasn't come out of the blue by the sounds of it: I'd look long and hard at how they've treated you in the past and any other questionable behaviours they've exhibited before now.

Give them short shrift and tell them that you both know it was a gift at the time and that you do not want to hear another word from them on the matter.

I once lent money of about £1000 to my sibling who I trusted with my full heart and would not have dreamed of making it hard for me to get back the money. Unfortunately I had to ask for it back after two years. I needed it for a house deposit (and sibling knew I needed it desperately and still dug their heels in even though they were working full time this entire time. They could have repaid a little bit at a time. I blame myself though in this.

It was discussed it was a loan but being family it wasn’t as business-like with contracts drawn. It was very naive and silly of me and I blame myself for my trusting nature. I got it back and I would never lend money to anyone again unless I had a full drawn out contract. Just no.

My husband has done work on their properties but only charged them for material where he didn't earn a penny apart from helping them out. So I really don't see how this has came about. My husband is a very good tradesman where he fixes everyone's problem.

OMG... so they've had free labour out of your DH and they've got the absolute bare arsed cheek to demand the pair of you pay back their 'gift' (which was it seems only ever a means to control your wedding in the first place and invite who they wanted and show off...)...

Fuck me, it just gets worse and worse. Tell them to fuck right off! Please do not give them the steam off your piss!

Can you retrieve any text or email message exchanges - which might well evidence the truth (that you chose x but they wanted to upgrade to y for example?).

And that the wedding dress you chose cost x but they offered y - and you can remind them of the exact dialogue at the time.

How shocking of your parents, more especially considering you have toddlers and are dealing with pregnancy too.