Oh flipping heck - what was meant to be a passing comment, I’ll now need to unpack. My dad retired and had a few years left on his mortgage. Interest rates were low (those were the days!) and he was going to use his modest savings to pay off his mortgage while it made more financial sense to pay debts than collect minimal interest. Without the savings, he would have found it extremely difficult to make his mortgage payments on his pension
My (unmarried) partner and I were looking to buy a house together. I had a crummy credit rating and no real savings (courtesy of a cocklodger ex and poor choices regarding trust on my part).
My partner, on the other hand, had a good credit rating and owned the flat we lived in. While I had paid half the bills and a third of his mortgage for the 2.5 years I’d lived there with him, I didn’t see myself as having any claim and wanted him to keep that as his asset.
His mortgage was phenomenal (0.25% over BOE base rate variable, which at that time was 0%). He also had some money left to him when various relatives had died. With that money, he could afford to port the existing mortgage in his name to the house we wanted to buy, and own the flat outright (and rent it out to bring in some more money).
The bank, HSBC, at the time allowed him to port the mortgage in his name only (obviously, we’d have to remortgage for both of us to be on there). However, that mortgage was short by £50k.
Therefore, I asked my dad if I could borrow £30k as a deposit, and my OH got a higher fixed rate mortgage for the other £20k (my slowly improving but still crummy credit rating meaning we’d have a worse deal than just him alone).
My other half, also incredibly amazingly, was ok with me being named on the deeds, though not on the mortgage. HSBC tried to talk him out of it, to no avail. My dad lent me the £30k, and I transferred that into my OH’s account, to put down as a deposit. We had a contract drawn up by our conveyancer which set out my deposit and my other half’s contribution, and how we would split it should we split up, though she did say it could be overturned in court either way and wasn’t hugely enforceable.
So, my dad lent me his savings, which he could have used to pay his mortgage, relying on my repayments every month to help cover his remaining mortgage. On top of that, it went into my account, then my OH’s account and if anything happened to me, or we split up and my partner turned into a pillock…there was a chance it would be lost.
He did that after I went to see him, nervously, with a big file full of budget forecasts and backup plans to cover scenarios A, B, C, D through to Z. I was so scared and fully understood the enormity of what I was asking. I am beyond grateful he said yes. He said afterwards that it was the first time he’d seen a sign of adult decision-making, weighing up the pros and cons, asking for help in order to ensure that I had a stake in the house and relationship and making reasonable suggestions for repayments that didn’t overpromise. And avoided me going to a loan company that would have charged extortionate interest with my credit rating, if they lent at all.
And this is thing…if the OP was faffing about or taking the mick, I’d understand PPs comments like yours saying she’s taking advantage of her parents…but she’s not. They made a choice to take on the element of risk to help her. She’s shown she’s paying the debts back sustainably and regularly, and when the debts are finally fully paid down, she and her parents will be the closer for it.
She will always be grateful they helped her when she needed it, they will see the hallmarks of responsibility and maturity and cherish her all the more.
To call her a thief and an abuser is both demeaning to her parents, who took this decision of their own free will, and utterly crushing for the OP, who hasn’t done anything wrong.