Loan outstanding to our son is causing weekly abuse

[Tiredtrudy]

I'm not sure if I'm being the unreasonable one here. We moved two years ago. Our adult son (now 25) was living in London. Our mortgage offer came up £20k short and he covered the shortfall with a loan (we had maxed out on the house due to our ages). Payments to be paid by us, and his terms were he wanted to move in to save for a house deposit. That was eighteen months ago. During that time I became seriously ill and will not recover. I'm the high earner. I'm waiting to be medically retired. These things are never quick as insurance doesn't want to pay.
He has paid nearly all the monthly payments as I've been unwaged but never given us any keep. He might buy the odd takeaway. Anything he pays for is recorded on a spreadsheet which I didn't know existed until recently.
The monthly payment is £400 the same as many friends charge their adult DC. He eats a lot. He earns more than his father who is in his 60s and still working to keep a roof over our heads. We also have a younger DC at home who is at a local University.
Things have come to head as he wants to buy this spring. I haven't been able to confirm if I can give him this money back then. He is now forcing us to sell our home (which we do need to due for mobility reasons). We have equity in the house to repay him and move to a smaller property.
I'm now expected to give full weekly updates on our finances and any accessible work options I might be applying for. If I don't give him this information he flys into a rage screaming at me and telling me I've ruined his life.
The payments he has made are less than 10% of his take home pay.
He had mostly a private education and I paid off his sports car finance two years ago. He's never offered to take that off 'the bill'.
My DH has told him I'm ill and when the house is sold he can have his money. It doesn't seem to be enough. My husband things he's a privileged brat.
To punish us he refused to attend a family party at the weekend. Yesterday he shouted at me for an hour. I was crying. It turns out he had promised his GF a house last year. She was going to leave him as this hasn't happened.
Due to my health I am barely able to walk. I can't just go and work in a shop or warehouse. He does stay with his GF a couple of days a week and we all breathe a sigh of relief. I'm not frightened of him but he is so nasty to me. I don't know what to do.

If push came to shove, he wouldn’t do it because he knows he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Something hard needs to hit him in the face before he can see what’s really going on.

Oh dear.

Please scroll back and read the post I was quoting. Going to court wasn't my idea. My point was, IF they went to court, they'd be putting themselves at risk of prosecution for fraud.

Hence, going to court probably not a great way to sort out the mess!

This thread is clearly able to be separated into two sets of repliers-those with older adult children who seem to believe they are owed everything and those that are the adult children who are incredulous at the whole situation.

The son shouldn’t be shouting but other than that cancer or no cancer I’m on his side. He’s financed himself up to the eyeballs for his mom and dads sake and within a couple of months he’s had to carry the burden of the loan he wouldn’t have taken out if it hadn’t been for his parents. And yet somehow his parents are making it all sound like it’s his fault he wants the money back.

OP, if you look at this transactionally, as your DS appears to be doing, he owes you £300 for every month he has lived with you. You say he moved in 18 months ago, so the total he owes you is £5,400. You had repaid £3,200 before you fell ill.

So you don't owe him £20,000, you subtract £5,400 and £3,200 from that, so a total of £11,400 as of now and the amount reduces by £300 from now onwards for every month he lives in your house.

Could you re-mortgage for this amount, give it back to him and he moves out?

I hope your treatment goes well in January and so sorry you are going through this alongside your illness.

The point is, he agreed to the loan, and moved in on the pretext of allowing him to save for his own house deposit. A mortgage can’t happen until the loan is paid off so presumably the plan was to live with OP for the duration of the loan agreement. He’s not paying the rent agreed 18 months ago - £300 a month, never has. So essentially the only thing that’s changed here is that he’s now paying the £400 loan himself, but still not paying any rent or keep, so the one balances the other out. The fact that plenty of people live at home rent free is irrelevant - he’s on £47000 a year, he can afford to pay a couple of hundred quid rent given the circumstances.

What I think is actually going on here is that it’s only just become clear to him that he can’t actually get a mortgage until the loan is paid off. Why would he even be thinking about buying a house in the spring if the loan agreement is in his name and ongoing beyond that ? I think that’s the real reason he’s turned nasty. He is, in fact, using the OP’s illness and inability to repay the loan against her, to force the sale of her home and extricate himself from the arrangement early. His priorities have changed and his sick mother is no longer among them.

I do think it’s odd that you funded private education, car gifts, have decent pensions & equity but very little in savings & no way of accessing 20k.

The point is, he agreed to the loan, and moved in on the pretext of allowing him to save for his own house deposit. A mortgage can’t happen until he’s free of the loan, so presumably the plan was to live with OP for the duration of the loan. He’s not paying the rent agreed 18 months ago - £300 a month, never has. So essentially the only thing that’s changed is that he’s now paying the £400 loan himself, but still not paying any rent or keep, so the one balances the other out. The fact that plenty of people live at home rent free is irrelevant - he’s on £47000 a year, he can afford to pay a couple of hundred quid rent given the circumstances.

How does £300 & £400 balance each other out? How long has he been paying the £400? It doesn’t matter if he’s on 100k, he’s not obliged to pay more than £300 as that was what was agreed.

I'm astonished at some of these responses.

The OP bought a house well above her means with her DH well above an age where normal people would consider getting out a mortgage due to being close to retirement age. In order to do this her DS who was 23 at the time took out a loan and gave them 20k.

The agreement was that he would move in with them in return for taking out the loan in order to help him save for himself to get a deposit to get on the housing ladder, OP was supposed to make the loan repayments.

However OP hasn't been making loan payments, her DS has been making loan payments because unfortunately OP became unwell and hasn't been able to work (which is another red flag for not being able to afford the property in the first place if it was unaffordable on one wage).

Whilst it's not great how your DS is behaving I do think you're behaving appallingly. The loan will have come to more than 20k with interest taken into account, this will be on his credit report and he's unlikely to be able to get a mortgage whilst this loan is outstanding. It's possible he might not pass credit checks for renting either whilst it's outstanding. He's probably worried about this hanging over his head, can see your finances are shit and has realised that by helping you he's thoroughly screwed his chances to get on the housing ladder himself for another few years.

Should he be paying board/food? Yes, but equally you're only in your home because your son not only took out a loan for 20k, but has been paying that loan because you haven't and he's been forced to pay it because if he had relied on you keeping your word his credit would be trashed.

Top it off you've thrown at him all the prior finances you've covered for him in the past including private school as though he should be grateful that you did all these things and he owes you for it (entirely your choice to send him to private school and should never be used as a weapon to beat your child into being grateful or expecting repayment).

Don't be surprised if your son never does another favour for you again. He was unwise to do it in the first place and probably never thought for a minute you wouldn't make the repayments or throw everything in his face that you've ever done for him.

Sell the house, it's unaffordable and pay your son back, not just the 20K, but the full loan amount plus the interest and any early redemption fee that he will owe the bank/loan company for paying it back early.

You're in real danger here of not doing real damage to any future relationship with your son.

What I think is actually going on here is that it’s only just become clear to him that he can’t actually get a mortgage until the loan is paid off. Why would he even be thinking about buying a house in the spring if the loan agreement is in his name and ongoing beyond that ? I think that’s the real reason he’s turned nasty He is, in fact, using the OP’s illness and inability to repay the loan against her, to force the sale of her home and extricate himself from the arrangement early. His priorities have changed and his sick mother is no longer among them.

He lent the money at what 22/23, I’m sure he didn’t have any idea of what the implications were. But I just wouldn’t place all the blame at his door. As I’ve said the OP needs to take some responsibility.

Why on earth is your DH not financially contributing to the house but will inherit it all but you’re thinking of subtracting private schooling from the loan amount you borrowed from your own child?!

He is a spoiled brat. You should have put the conditions from the beginning. He is an adult; you should have charged him rent and any extras was a loan. It looks you didn’t make yourself clear from the beginning

@RadioWhatsNew I know! If the OP had started a thread saying “should I borrow 20k of my dc” no one with any sense would say “do it”. Same if the son said “shall I lend my parents 20k so they can stay in their home”.

It sounds incredibly tough OP. I imagine he's worried what would happen if you died.

Not only would he be grieving, he'd still be liable for the £20k loan (or the remainder of it), he'd have no where to live and potentially have problems buying a place himself due to the loan in his name.

Add to this the pressure the girlfriend is putting on him, and he's taking it out on you. Its unfair, on all of you.

I know he'll inherit your pension, but that might take some time. What will he do in the meantime? I'm not surprised he's pushing for details. Can you set it all out very clearly for him? Whats the delay with releasing some of your pension?

I still think he's being a dick.

Exactly! What is the situation with the DH? What is he contributing?

And I don’t understand why the DH is so passive & uninvolved.

I just can't take you seriously after the laughing emoji so I didn't get past your first line. I thought laughing emoji replies were just a Facebook thing for the hard of thinking.

I agree. It was your choice to spend all that money on his education and pay for his car. You can’t hold that against him now because of the situation.

It sounds like it was okay until you were forced into medical retirement and earning significantly less money. You are now in a difficult situation and after him helping you out you have expected him to pay for all your bills - your comment about how much he eats was odd. He agreed to pay the loan which he is doing. I understand that you want him to pay more but this wasn’t the agreement. Yes he should want to help his parents but he doesn’t have to just because you want him to.

Since you have to sell the house anyway, focus on this.

Don't let his spreadsheet bother you. He can do what he likes. Who cares if he is doing this? Your problem is his attitude and behaviour toward you.

He is allowed to want to buy a house and what he does is it’s his girlfriend )no matter how unwise) is his business.

The next time he starts I wouldn’t get involved. Say something like “I am not going to have this conversation with you acting like this. Your behaviour toward me is unacceptable and isn’t in keeping to the way I have raised you. When you are able to have a calm and mature discussion then I am happy to do so. Until then I will not be part of this conversation” and walk away!

Where is your husband in all of this?

And they're irrelevant. They were gifts. Do you think your son should gift you the £20k?

How was my reply rude?

That poster was trying to he helpful and come up with solutions for OP who is struggling financially.

It didn’t deserve a rude reply and I said so but I didn’t say it in a rude way.

Top it off you've thrown at him all the prior finances you've covered for him in the past including private school as though he should be grateful that you did all these things and he owes you for it (entirely your choice to send him to private school and should never be used as a weapon to beat your child into being grateful or expecting repayment).

this is a red flag to me.

Couldn't just read and run.

It sounds like a nightmare OP and as you have said, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Your DS needs to be told to back off. You are doing all you can and more. Obviously the situation is not ideal for DS but he is going to have to wait. It's not as if he is going to become homeless if he doesn't buy right now so he is being very unreasonable. Sounds like is GF has him under the thumb! Does anyone have a good relationship with her that could talk to her and try to reason with DS to get him to calm down until you can get things sorted.

I do hope you get things sorted OP. What you need right now is peace and quiet and I am sending you all of the good vibes and virtual hugs and hope you can move on from this very quickly.

But the OP is not asking her son to pay both rent AND the debt repayments. She just wants him not to abuse her about the money she owes him. Instead, the son should be thinking ‘’I pay £400 pcm towards the loan, but I don’t pay anything to live and eat in my parents’ house. This would cost me more than £400 pcm and I therefore have a financial advantage, I better stop shouting at my parents’’

And the OP mostly refers to him as simply DH but the first post clarifies that he is the father. A grown man should be able to cover the £400 they both agreed on. Having minimal expenses with a small mortgage with that age should allow for a reasonable amount of disposable income.

why cant you release more equity on a lifetime mortgage? or sell the house

I completely agree and if I was DS this is what I would be annoyed about.

How does 2 people with very good jobs not have any savings.

They’ve obviously been living well above their means and it’s all for show.
Which is probably why they’re so reluctant to sell up.