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?

It sounds a big part of the money went on financing their wedding wishes anyway.

Maybe you can write them a letter/email. Say that you've never realised they ment it as a loan, and that you agreed to some of their preferences for your wedding as you saw it as them financing their choices.

Subtract from the 10 000 anything spend on their choices.

For example -they paid 3500 for a dress with veil, you were happy with 800 dress, offer them those 800
The same with anything they paid for.
Offer them to pay that heavily reduced sum in installments and call it a clean break.

This - I’d be sitting them down and making clear a) that it was offered without conditions and accepted at the time on the understanding that it was a gift and b) that the fact that they would want to put their DGC’s financial security at risk by demanding it back or insisting you get a loan is, frankly, one of the most cruel and unloving acts you and and your DH have ever heard of, and c) on that basis, if they want to continue a relationship with your children, they owe you both an apology!

I thanked my parents for a wedding gift worth far less than £100. Yes, they could have afforded a lot more but that never even crossed my mind. I was grateful for the gift and had a very happy wedding day.

But she didn't "borrow" the money. It was presented to her as a gift from her parents which is very very normal when someone gets married, though to varying degrees. Her parents encouraged her to spend more than she had planned and told her not to worry, she's their only child, they'll cover it: again implying that the money was a gift.
Now they want a fancy cruise, and are asking for the money back. They have behaved very badly.

She wasn't a borrower. She was talked into the more extravagent options by her parents, the hog roast, the most expensive wedding dress, inviting lots of her parents' friends. She wasn't planning to do any of this until her parents intervened. They didn't say that it was a loan so they can't expect OP to pay back the money.

Lots of parents pay for their daughters' weddings so OP wasn't being unreasonable to believe that was what her parents were doing, i.e. making a financial contribution to the costs of the wedding.

They have now completely moved the goal posts in telling her that it was a loan that needs to be repaid in a year for them to afford their cruise.

I bet your dad was acting like billy big bollocks at the time,how he paid for the wedding.Bragging to everyone. This is so wrong no mention for three years,suddenly you have to pay it back because they want a cruise .No way should you be paying anything back .

This is absolutely disgraceful of them. You need to sit down and explain this to them. They were adding on extras that you would have never had, if you had known it was a loan. A loan was NEVER mentioned. U need to stop being all oh I must have misunderstood. I know h don’t want to fall out but ffs you are letting them walk all over u.

Tell them categorically that you cannot pay it back in 1 year under the circumstances. If they do indeed insist on getting it back I would be telling them that this is going to seriously effect your relationship if there will be any relationship left at all.

Worse of all they want the money for a cruise. Omg wtf, it isn’t like there roof is on its last legs, I’d be absolutely fuming and so hurt.

Send them a message reminding them what happened - how they increased the costs significantly and that you would not have gone for those additional costs had you known they expected you to pay for it. Tell them clearly that you cannot pay them back £10k.

You are going to have to accept that your relationship with them is broken - it is hard to imagine parents doing this to their DC. Disgraceful on their part.

but when I looked, 139 people had voted and the percentage was 97%

"...nothing I don't regret." You mean, you do regret it?

"...they was over the moon for me..." Was they indeed. :-)?

Your parents are being mean asking for you to pay back what was not a loan and you should say so, firmly. They insisted on adding expense at the time, not you. The whole thing cost an awful lot of money which really was not necessary but they wanted to do it for their only daughter.

However I do wonder if they have now found themselves in some financial difficulty. Please do ask them, carefully. They may not want to tell you but I think they owe you an explanation for why their generous gift has turned into a loan some years down the line.

No documentation. No discussion. Their word against your word. Parents have no legal recourse. They can of course exert emotional pressure and disapproval. Likely you’ll all fall out over this.

Lesson being,if you lend money. Be explicit. Document it.
It is all v unfortunate
They will exert disapproval it will be uncomfortable, however you shouldn’t pay

It may help to sit down with them, the wedding costs and a high level outline of your current budget.

Then start out with acknowledging that all round there has been a misunderstanding. At the time you took the £10k as being their contribution to the wedding costs, and that as such, you as a couple were happy for them to choose how some of that was spent. That all your choices were based on that, but now given what they’re saying you can see that was a significant mistake. That everyone needs to take some responsibility for.

If it was a loan, then your parents should not have been making changes to the costs of the wedding. They should be able to acknowledge that.

And work out what costs are ‘theirs’ because they added them to the wedding bill. And what’s ‘yours’. Then a repayment plan for the bit that’s yours. At an affordable rate for you (similar to what a court would impose). Which might be £10 a week.

Realistically, it won’t move forward as a topic until the epic mix up (let’s be generous) is acknowledge including that some of what they did wasn’t ok if it was a loan.

They are aiming for early retirement and a cruise! For gods sake

Are they developing some sort of dementia and genuinely believe it was a loan? Or did your mother think it was a gift and encouraged all the spending and your father had intended it to be a loan?

I just don't understand why they would suddenly cause upset by asking for it back?? But then again people are strange 🤷‍♀️

the way they have behaved is insane. Please don’t pay them back. It’s 3 years since the wedding and first time this has been called a loan. It’s awful.

Your dad wants to retire early and they’ve realised how expensive it is and now they want some more money so they can holiday and have an easier retirement! They are being CFs of the highest order.

i would remind them that you wanted a cheaper dress but your mum wanted a more expensive one that she paid for. That your dad wanted the more expensive food package that he paid for etc. that’s where the 10k went they spent it not you
I would remind them that at no point did they say it was a loan and they can’t change it into one now so you owe them nothing

point out you don’t have the money anyway so tough

Is that 'financial difficulty' being unable to afford a cruise? They might get a bit more sympathy if they were struggling to pay their heating bills or for food. Even so, you'd think they'd ask for a loan - or even a donation - rather than pretending a gift they gave willingly was actually a loan they are entitled to have back.

I wouldn’t pay them anything at all. If it ends up in small claims court that could be seen as a loan agreement, which it wasn’t. I’d just tell them that as far as you were concerned it was a gift and if they had told you at the time it had to be repaid you would never have spent the kind of money they talked you into.

OP what they’ve done is decided that they want to go on a cruise and can’t afford it, so they’ve dressed their wedding contribution up as a loan so they get their holiday and you end up paying for it. That’s reprehensible and I would refuse to even discuss it again, and let them get on with whatever action they want to take. They will have to take you to small claims court and even then you can’t pay what you don’t have - not that you would need to, as with nothing in writing they’d be laughed out of court and they would have to add court costs to the ‘debt’.

I would pay them back for the basic parts of the wedding, but not for the extras that they pushed for such as the harpist, hog roast, extra £1.7k for the wedding dress and the veil. I don’t think you should have to pay anything back, actually, but if you want to maintain a relationship with them that may be the best way?

I think that your relationship will be changed for good after this though, they are behaving appallingly and you will never trust them in the same way again. People really can be crap sometimes🙁

Thats shocking of your parents and extremely stressful.
I would sit down and make a list of when and over what they said dont worry we will pay, so the dress that you mentioned etc.
I would then organise a meeting with them and you and your dh. Go through each item and reiterate that at no point did they say it was a loan, but made it clear it was a gift.
I would then explain that if for one monet you had known it was a loan, that you would have gone with your original ideas rather than being 10k in debt. I would also tell them that I was very disappointed that they feel this is correct and to basically lie.

Then I would tell them how much you could afford to pay them back monthly, as there is no way you can pay 10k on one, especially with young children. I would not negotiate, I understand this will change your relationship and they won't be happy, but think about what they are doing to you and your dh. You could have had the wedding your ere going to have, which was a lot cheaper but jow fins yourself owing 10k! They can't chase it legally of.course as they have no proof it was a loan.

No agreement, nothing in writing, no payment plan discussed.

Yeah, I wouldn't be giving them anything.

I agree with you. I was thinking that maybe they made an unwise investment and are now hard up but of course we have no idea why they suddenly want the money. The op has to find out and be firm with them because she did not ask for a debt.

If they set up a payment plan and the parents decide to take them to small claims court, the fact that there is a repayment plan could be seen as proof of a loan agreement. I wouldn’t be paying a penny until l had legal advice.

OP it doesn't sound like you "such a good relationship" with your parents as stated.

No loving, caring parent would do this to their daughter (especially to their only child) and unfortunately whether you like it or not this event will change the dynamic of that relationship moving forward, through no fault of your own.

As others stated I wouldn't be giving them any money and would seek legal advice.