To send this email to fil?

[MrsFogi]

I'm thinking about sending the email below to fil and would like any mners views before I do so. I think the story is pretty self-explanatory from the email: fil promised a loan and gift to dh when we bought our house, we relied on this when we drew up our budget, only very small part of loan/gift has ever materialised. And, yes, he can afford it. I genuinely need to know where we stand in relation to the money and MrFogi has not had the balls to raise it to date with his father. Here goes:

"Dear FIL
I am sending you this email as over the years it has become clear that MrFogi does not feel comfortable raising this with you. I hope you will understand that this email is not meant in any way whatsoever to be antagonistic or to put pressure on you and I am in fact somewhat embarrassed to be writing it to you. However, I hope you will understand that as MrFogi leaves me to sort out the family finances and run our relationship with our bank it is a little difficult for me to do so without accurate information.

When we bought the house back in 200x MrFogi and I worked out a very careful and tight x-year budget as buying a house is always a stretch but something we needed to do as we were also thinking of housing our little family that has since evolved. Part of this budget was based on the assumption that you would be making a gift and loan to MrFogi. On this basis we took out a loan for the promised amount. Whilst I am aware that you had warned MrFogi that the gift/loan would take a few months to come through and did let MrFogi have a part of the money for which we are both very grateful, our assumption that we'd be able to repay the loan within a year or two of taking it out has proved to be incorrect this has caused a couple of issues. Firstly, we have been paying £x monthly interest on the loan since 200x which we did not budget for and secondly, recently banks have been looking more closely at their lending and the bank has pointed out to me that at the time of taking out the loan they did so on the basis of my reassurances that it would be repaid within a couple of years so this has now had a negative impact on my relationship with the bank and further there is now a concern that they will be reviewing their lending to us given that banks in the UK are now finding any excuse they can to pull pre-existing lending.

MrFogi and I are about to look at our budget for the coming years and it is imperative that we get it right this time. I am likely to be made redundant in the next few weeks and the job market is looking very bleak so clearly the consequences of us getting it wrong this time could be much more serious than having less money to live on. We are therefore doing our best to plan our budget for the coming years very carefully as our priorities now have to be how to firstly, ensure that we do not loose the house, secondly and to be able to pay for the bare essentials.

So that we can decide what to do in relation to managing the loan I should be grateful if you would let MrFogi know where he stands in relation to the rest of the gift/loan. I do not expect you to reply to me as clearly this is between you and MrFogi however I would be grateful if you would talk to MrFogi at some point (it is entirely up to you how you wish to raise the point with him and whether you raise this email).

I do hope you understand why I am writing to you and I do apologise if I have caused any offence it really is not my intention."

Think you should just forget the money and try to budget without it

Mmmmmmmmmm. I wouldn't go 'cap in hand' to a fil. And as above, its very formal. Do you have a relationship with your fil? You don't need to do it that way surely? Just ask him (as above again).

'Here listen, you know that money you promised us? Well we need it and if you can't do it we are in trouble so we need to know the position so we can make alternative arrangements.'

Depends very much on your relationship with fil. If you haven't got one where you can talk to him then oh should be doing it.

Good luck. Hope you sort it.

Don't send the email. If anything, call him up or go around and see him and ask him if he still wants to help you both out because you're struggling. Forget all the other stuff about unfulfilled promises etc etc.

can u not ring him? sound like ur writing to a company or something. way to formal. just send a text "giz some money" lol no only kidding on that last 1.

Forget about the money and move on. Things like this only cause major upset within the family (I know from first hand from recent events).

If you still feel like you have to speak to him about it, go and see him with DH and both explain the situation.

I don't think you should send an email or a letter, unless you really need the money I think you should forget about it. If you really need the money then I think you should speak to your FIL, ideally with your dh, but even on your own is better than in writing.

i think buying a house on the assumption or even promise of money, that had not been given was perhaps not the right thing to do

you got some of the money and for whatever reason, not the rest, but you chose to buy the hosue without having all the money

you can;t send the email, for all the reasons pointed out by other posters

can you perhaps look at moving your mortgage onto interest only to reduce payments for a while?

i think the real reason you want to send it is to tell him that he's seriously let you down and every time he swans off on an expensive holiday you are losing out big time.

you know now that you can't rely on him. perhaps it's time to start distancing yourself.

in what way are they demanding?

i think it's a good email, but i'm not by any means convinced that you'll achieve what you want.

what do you hope to get out of it?

i don;t think the FILS should not have holidays to give money to their children. i thikn that they have given some money and that is all they are going to give.... yes, the DH should speak to his father about feeling let down, but not ask for money outright.

Noooooooooo! Step away from the send button.

Assume you're never seeing the money and budget accordingly. If it comes good, bonus! Don't rely on it though and DON'T send the letter.

I agree with LuLu.

Another vote for dont send it.

If you accept that you will probably never see this money, it may also help you to draw a line when your PIL are overly demanding on you , as you say they can be.

Let the money issue go and it may be quite liberating for you and your husband.

Don't send the email.

Sort out your finances and budgets on teh basis that you won't ever receive another penny from anyone, then anything you may get is a bonus.

I can't believe anyone would ever have the nerve to send a letter to their in-laws asking if they will or will not be giving them any money. Tacky tacky tacky.

The key word in the second paragraph of your letter is assumption.
Not agreement.
You assumed, but it sounds as if nothing concrete was in place. And since then, no money has been forthcoming, which shows you assumed wrong.
Hard as this is, do not send the email.
Base your finances on the fact you do not have this money. It is the only sensible thing to do.

No matter how many holidays he swans off on it is nothing to do with you. It is his money. He has obv changed his mind for whatever reason and you won't be getting the money.

Re-organise your finances accepting that fact and move on.

The only other thing to do is for your DH to ask his father outright. Your FIL will have no respect for your DH otherwise.

Sorry to say this but you have to forget the money.

The only alternative is for your DH to speak to his dad. Perhaps mention the problems you are having due to your redundancy etc. But you cannot raise the subject. And if this doesn't work you will need to just let it go.

I would forget the money and carry on without it, money and families do not mix well.

My inlaws offered (i.e. we never asked) to give us a bridging loan to allow us to move cross country. We even discussed what interest we would be paying back (i.e. less than a bank bridging loan would of cost us but more than they were currently getting for the money in their savings account)

The money never arrived and at that time, the inlaws told us that "you don?t need the money, your mortgage will come through soon enough." Even more upsetting later on and to this date they deny that they never agreed to it and they have no idea where we got the idea !!! (Right, so we discussed fair interest and had a very specific amount of money offered, which happened to match their savings at the time)

I was more hurt by the denial of the offer than the lack of money. It appears they upgraded their holiday caravan around that time, which is fine it is their money but I would of preferred a truthful "we have changed our mind" and an acknowledgement that they made things very difficult for us and potentially we might of lost our new house due to not having the money straight away, hence the need for a bridging loan in the first place. But luckily DH & I sorted things out by the grit of our teeth and I learnt my lesson don't ever relay on money from the inlaws, nice as they are the rest of the time.

I understand how hurtful and upsetting things are you for you at the moment but you have to budget as if the inlaws are never going to give you this money and if they do (which I doubt) than it will be a nice surprise.

Dont send the letter.
Assume the money will not be coming ever. Plan your finances accordingly.
IF you MUST know about the money then DH should speak to fil or address the letter from him.

I think that sending this email would be a huge mistake. If, as you say, your FIL would react to you speaking to him about it by walking out of the room, then you should assume that he will treat an email with the same distain.

Your tone is overformal, and a little accusatory, especially considering it is to a family member.

If he owed you money he had borrowed from you, then I would suggest sending a letter, but to email someone requesting money offered as a gift is definitely inapproppriate, and I would be embarrassed to do it. I do understand that his actions have left you in a difficult position, but I think you just have to accept that it is what it is, and deal with it.

And I agree with other posters - it is your husband's place to deal with the problem, not yours.

agree with everyone else
you need to tell dh that he either approaches his fathe re. the money or he comes up with a way to get you out of this mess
I feel very very for you that it has come to this

Eek, I'm a bit of a lone voice here, but I think I might email FIL if I were in your position.

However, I would seriously guilt trip DH first and see if he would raise it, and if I still had to do it I would use dearprudence's wording rather than the formal letter you've written.

I personally think that as long as it was a 'proper' offer of money (I.e. he didn't say something like 'we'd love to give you some of our savings towards expenses', but rather, 'I agree to loan you £10,000 over 5 years at 0% interest' or whatever), it's a little unfair of him to rescind the offer without any warning, so it's not unreasonable of you to enquire after it.
I don't think he should be able to be bad mannered just because it's regarding money - if it was him or any other person making any other promise, it would be reasonable to expect him to uphold or explain.

They offered money two years ago, gave / lent you some. It would be more than reasonable to assume the rest is not going to materialise.

Don't rely on others for money, don't assume it's going to come through, and don't ask for it either.

V. bad form.

Sorry you're having a tough time at the moment, but you two are adults and I am sure that if the money was coming through it would have done so by now.

I can see why you might want to. I'm not sure that it'll help. You'll just look like the grabby wife.

tbh, IF you send it - for god's sake send it from your husbands email. And re-write it as though it was from him. If he's ok with you sending it, he should be ok with you sending it from him. If he's not - then he just wants you to look like the bad guy, doesn't he?

Because bad guy is what you will look like. I don't think this would end well.

Yes he said he would give you money, no he didn't do it, which was unfair of him. But it was foolish of you to do things before you got the money as anything can happen! Circumstances change and people change their minds.

It is clear by the fact that he has not given you this money that either he cannot because something has changed OR he has changed his mind and no longer wants to do it.

He should have been straight with you, but he didn't. You can't make him give you the money.

You can fall out with him over it, if it disturbs you so much, not speak to him any more. You can move on, let it go and rearrange your finances. You can speak to him, tell him you're disappointed that he wasn't able to help after all. You have many choices.

Either write a shorter letter "from" your dh - you get him to sign it but do everything else. Short and simple - the bank have said they need to see your money by xxxx. This is who you write the cheque to.

Or you accept you will never see the money.

If you send your original version - he will still not talk to dh about it and you have said it is fine not to talk to you. You will achieve nothing.

I totally understand your frustration but I don't think your email will have the desired effect.

Your DH needs to handle this, and if he can't/won't you really do need to write off the rest of the loan I think. Saying anything will only serve to get you even more angry and upset and will be another reason for FIL to treat you flippantly.

Please do let us know how you get on/what you decide though. I have a lot of sympathy - I'd have drafted an email if I were in your shoes and would also be itching to send it.