My sister has turned nasty on me

[MeImAllSmiles]

During the summer my sister phoned to say her oh of 16 years has walked out (not for the first time) leaving her and their two dcs. What stunned her the most was that CAB called her for her to come and see them! She had no idea what was going on til she went and they told her that oh had been to court about a year ago for not paying the mortgage and had been again in the spring for the same reason. It transpired that he had remortgaged without her knowing and not made repayments, he had kindly put her and the children on the housing waiting list, without her knowing, sold the car, left his job and disappeared! Dh and I spent load of time finding solicitor in her area who would do legal aid, found out what she would be entitled to re benefits, generally did loads of legwork for her.
Sister had a repossesion date of 4 September so my dh offered her £2K to try and delay repossession. The understanding was that it was a loan and needed to be paid back in January as it is dhs tax money (he is self employed), I said to sis that if oh moves back in then I wanted the money back straight away. Might sound odd to you but he has disappeared before and she's had him back, yeah I know, doormat. Anyway during the summer i found out she had gone on holiday with him and the children and he is now back 'home'. She hasn't told me any of this I have found out by chance. She hasn't called me since August. i have phoned her, but not confronted her until last week when I left a message asking when in January we could expect the repayment. She phoned back and really went for me saying you'll get your money back don't worry in a v nasty way. What concerns me is that she told me that the money would come out of the sale of her house which is now not happening. I really think that she is embarrassed/ashamed about taking him back so her best form of defence was attack. She gave me £1000 about 15 years ago from some compensation she was due, it was a gift, everyone in our family got the same but she threw that at me saying i never once phoned you to hassle you about paying it back. I called her yesterday to wish her ds happy birthday, answer machine was on, I left a message but got no return call. She is making Christmas arrangements via my mum which never happens, so she is obviously avoiding me. What troubles me is that she has turned with such a force that I think she will 'blacken' me to my mum. sister is one who likes to have people 'on side', so should I tell my mum what's been going on?
Appreciate this is long, but really don't know what to do?

I suspect she doesn't have the money to pay you, tbh. She may be embarrassed at having taken her oh back again, but it's probably the fact that she cannot repay the loan which is causing her to act this way. If it was supposed to be coming from the sale, which isn't happening, and her oh was clearly in serious financial difficulties previously, where would she get it from?

Would telling your mum help the situation? How would she blacken you to her?

Perhaps it would be best to put things in writing. It would have been better to do that when you lent her the money - got her to sign some form of contract/agreement - but no point crying over spilt milk. Point out in a letter that the money was lent to her on x date, that she agreed to repay it in full by y date. Can she please confirm that she will be adhering to the agreement?

Not nice when it's family.

If this was me I'm afraid I'd write the money off, even if it meant I had to get a loan to cover my tax bill; I'm not good with money! but I couldn't bear to drag this sort of thing out to be honest.

I would use it simply as a huge, stark wake-up call to change my response to her in the future to be honest. I would never get involved in the details of her life again, after this. I would be there with cups of tea and sympathy but would stop it there no matter what. She is a grown up, she makes her own choices and I think you need to take a huge step back.

Forget it, write it off but learn from it big time.

Thanks for the replies. Crazily i am living in hope that she will repay, but if she can't, why not just phone up and admit it, along the lines of, know you won't agree with me taking him back but it's my choice etc etc, about the loan i can/can't pay back on time but can we come to an arrangement of x amount a month. Something along those line would have been acceptable and not led to this.

Well, I guess that's what you're going to have to do if she doesn't have the courage to contact you.

I'd do a letter asking for it on x date, then saying that if this isn't poss, you'll accept £100 per month or whatever.