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."