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.

I strongly agree with this. His girlfriend may well have had her portion of a deposit saved for some time now, and is being held back by her boyfriend and his parents’ disastrous financial decisions. They may be only in their early 20s, but that has absolutely no bearing on how serious their plans are - I got married at 20 and by 23 was well into the stage of home buying and family planning. People value different things, OP’s son and girlfriend shouldn’t have to wait for home ownership and potentially marriage and kids if they can afford them.

He would pay way more in rent, food, etc. £400 a month is nothing FFS!

Your son is being awful. However it does sound like girlfriend is putting undue pressure on him.

Total up the £300 board payments he has missed. Deduct this from the amount you owe him as well as the £3200 paid.
Advise your son you are grateful for his help but if he continues this attitude at a time when the whole family is under a lot of stress due to your ill health then he will not inherit anything.

Also if dh is your children's father he should inherit everything and the kids inherit from him. Dont have dh worrying about money if you do die. Especially when son has had generous gifts yet being so unreasonable about repayments.

Stepping back from this for a moment though, before you were ill, you asked your 23 year old son to sub you £20k to buy a house which you couldn’t afford and couldn’t raise the mortgage for because your husband is in his 60’s (and I assume you are at least in your 50’s given the age of your children). That was an extraordinary burden to put on someone who was just starting out in adult life.

And yet the son is getting criticised for not having financial acumen or been blamed for forcing the OP to take the loan.

But at the time they could pay it back

No one could have foreseen Cancer

It’s not as if £400 per month should be breaking him to pay it back. He has turned a blind eye to the fact that he was only going to get £100 per month from his parents anyway and ignored the fact that he should be knocking off the £300 per month as living expenses

If he really wanted this loan gone it would have been gone by now + he should have at least another £20k in the bank and should be making sure his mum is as relaxed as possible going into chemo and helping her get through it. Not changing the rules to suit his needs and getting abusive when people can’t adhere to his orders whilst ignoring his own commitments

He has a large income and minuscule expenses. But given his anger and frustration at not getting everything paid off immediately when he demanded I suspect he is behind with payments and the bank is demanding a full settlement

You’re missing the point. He was tied to that loan whatever happened. That’s what he agreed to. There would be a repayment term to the loan, during which time he would have been unable to get a mortgage, so why were he and his GF planning on buying a house in the spring ? The loan is being repaid, so nothing has changed there. The difference is that his priorities have changed. Had OP not become ill the only difference would be that she would be paying the loan - it would still be in his name.

The DS offered. They didn’t ask. They were looking at cheaper houses

He would pay way more in rent, food, etc. £400 a month is nothing FFS!

It doesn’t matter, you don’t agree to terms and then change the terms.

The DS offered. They didn’t ask. They were looking at cheaper houses so @Yalta they had no choice?

It’s not obligatory to take up an offer!

The gf hasn’t got any money

But this still doesn't answer the question of what your husband is contributing now. Why do you say "My DH is not involved in this as it is my house but he inherits it on my death." Is he not paying the mortgage? Not on the deeds?Why?*

something doesn’t add up, the OP is way to vague about DH.

Well actually yes you do, when you borrow money on behalf of people who can't afford it. That's why banks don't do it.

In addition, the son agreed to a 4 year loan and signed for it. He is now asking for repayment after 18 months, isn't that changing the terms or is your rule only applicable to the one who forgot to predict her cancer?

The parents could also increase the rent and board to £600 or more, which is probably way closer to what their son cost them.

It’s not as if £400 per month should be breaking him to pay it back.

Surely you can level this criticism at the OP & her DH?

As others have said, she didn’t need to accept his offer.

I’ve got a child of the same age and would never in a million years agree to him shouldering that kind of burden for me!

Come off it, a 23 year old persuading their parents to buy a house they can't afford? I've never heard anything so ridiculous. Most parents wouldn't put the burden of even discussing their finances with their child let alone letting them "persuade" them to make such a purchase. Who in their right mind takes any sort of finance advice from a 23 year old?

Did you miss the part where the OP also said they have no money because of a dodgy financial investment/scam?

I'm sorry the OP has cancer but it sounds like they were spending/buying well beyond their means long before that happened.

You've made assumptions about the loan terms also, the OP hasn't at any point been transparent on what her agreement was with her son for repayment of the loan he took out for her. It could have been to pay the monthly repayments over the term or it could have been to overpay the loan to ensure it was paid off quicker.

The OPs DH seems to be sitting back and contributing absolutely zero in this but still benefiting from it whilst the DS is made out to be the devil incarnate. Has he behaved brilliantly? Absolutely not, however he's not the villian that so many here seem to be frothing to make him whilst crying poor OP despite her financial irresponsibility.

We're getting one very biased side of a story here that has more holes than a sieve with an OP that's not answering questions and isn't being transparent and I can't help but wonder if that's because, those answers would in fact make her look less favourable

He needs to move out. Can he stay with his girlfriend? You are ill but he still needs his money. You haven’t kept your side of the deal. I’m presuming he didn’t ask for private school so that’s irrelevant. He sounds stressed. As I’m sure you are. Put the house up for sale then give him his money in full.

Which was updated after my OP. Are you expecting me to know which version is correct?

Or whether OP means her DH inherits half her pension and her children get the other half?

@Tiredtrudy if son agreed £300 rent but hasn’t paid, work out what he owes you on that: desict from what you owe him. Present a revised agreement.

I don’t understand why he isn’t paying rent, even if he wasn’t earning a big salary. The girlfriend sounds like a gold digger who’s encouraging him. He’ll get stung by her.

You should only be moving if you and your DH want to move.

Can you not secure a loan on your pension? Not ideal but to get all this sorted?

@Bearbookagainandagain not if you want to keep your family relationships you don’t. I haven’t said the son is correct in wanting the repayment back early but the OP stopped making the payments, has it been made clear when the son will get his loan back because there seems to be a few holes in the OPs posts.

The son is getting his loan back in free rent and lodging.

Which was updated after my OP. Are you expecting me to know which version is correct?

Just assumed you were reading the thread, it’s helpful when commenting!

Or whether OP means her DH inherits half her pension and her children get the other half?

I suppose it depends on what your definition of “he gets the lot” means, the lot or not the lot?

No you are - the cancer changed everything and it should have been recognised then that the solution of him taking on the payments (which wasn’t agreed) changed everyone’s priorities not just his.

I could be wrong but my impression as well was not only was the OP paying the loan she expected (before she was ill) to be able to pay off the loan by now

Selling of the house (which arguably never should have been bought in the first place) is the way forward and if the OP accepts that as simply the fate of circumstances rather than her son forcing her too it would have gone much better at the start

Cancer is a life changing event for families and things need to adapt and change - the son taking on the payments was rightly the short term solution but a year later it needs to be different

what is interesting is the husband has done nothing apart from support his son

as with everything we only have the OPs account and whilst it is HER truth it is undoubtedly not the ACTUAL FACTUAL truth and I suspect the accounts of the son, girlfriend and husband would be different

but the end result is the same the only way through this is selling and taking what the OP calls substantial equity and buy somewhere smaller

The son is getting his loan back in free rent and lodging. @Bearbookagainandagain but where does he live if the OP dies (hopefully not) before all the repayments have been made?

Do you have critical illness cover with your mortgage?
Aside from that you need to downsize asap, give your son his money and he needs to move out.
The rest of it you shouldn't get involved in. It sounds as if your relationship with your son is completely broken down.