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.

WTF? He got an unsecured loan to help them and they aren’t paying it back!

@Yalta I am wondering where his salary is actually going and wondering if there are other things going on because if you are earning £4k + per month and are only paying out £400 for a loan and a car’s running costs, where is the rest going

Why on earth would you leap to gambling because he doesn’t want to use his savings to cover the remaining ~15k or thereabouts that his parents had agreed to pay?!

Actually the loss of money in fraud is v relevant because that is also why they can’t pay of the loan either - my impression is that the plan was the loan was off outright by now and it hasn’t

@Bearbookagainandagain the whole problem is he doesn’t want to live with them

Neither has OP or her DH...

He encouraged his parents to buy the large house. OP wanted a smaller house. Surely he knew he'd be responsible for the loan?

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

This

@rightinthedavinamccalls

Can we all please agree that it is ridiculous to say the son encouraged/forced/advised OP and her DH to buy this house. He was 22, what a ridiculous suggestion to make that her son had any say in her decision to buy this house. And if he did, then that's just complete financial irresponsibility on OPs part.

2nd this! Where is the DH???

And @Strikeoutnow drips feeds about cancer/loss of money to fraud/older girlfriend and nothing about the husband

And a change from forcing to sell to accepting selling

He encouraged his parents to buy the large house. OP wanted a smaller house. Surely he knew he'd be responsible for the loan?

🤦‍♀️ Why would he assume his parents would let him down or get ill? And if he should have thought about this, then why didn’t his parents also do so?

After seeing some of these responses I am so grateful for my parents & now understand why the relationship board is so busy!

We just need the facts clarified.

He was supposed to pay you £300 a month for board, when he moved in.

You were supposed to pay him £400 a month, to repay the loan.

You paid some of it but then became ill and couldn’t afford the £400.

You asked him to cover your £400 to pay off the loan, which you’ve said he has been doing.

You are annoyed that he’s not paying the £400 + the £300 board on top.

So what was the agreement?

Was it that he would continue to pay £300 board PLUS £400 on top?
In which case he’s BU to not be paying it.

Or was it that you would let him off paying the £300 board, and instead he’d just have to pay the £400 a month?
In which case you would owe him £100 a month.

I don’t think the op has said the DS has an actual loan from a company. He may have just lent her money directly from his own accounts. He works in finance and she says highly paid. Two of DH friends do and their salaries are huge. The only person I know who works in finance is a coder, no idea how much he earns but he said his junior staff earn as much as a post he saw for head of IT security for the entire NHS.

The GF is 28, people change a lot in their twenties she wants to try out living together. the difference between 23 and 28 is pretty huge.

Absolutely this.

There should have been clear understanding from the start about who was paying what.

If the agreement was parents pay the loan @£400pm, and he pays rent to them at £300pm, this payment should help the parents pay the loan amount off. It should have all been kept as separate payments in/ out so there’s a trail.

Alternatively just agree £400 for board which directly services the loan payment?

The fact that none of you considered how you would pay back a substantial loan on top of your mortgage in your 60s is really irresponsible.

This and add how much it costs you to pay for his use of water, gas, electric, food, anything else you get for him. Don’t do anything for him or pay for anything. Tell him to buy his own food and pay £400 rent monthly. Don’t sell your home! He’s disgusting.

Why would he know he was responsible for the loan when the agreement for for the parents to pay? He was like 1, maybe 2 years into work after uni when the agreement was made. Who gives a shit if it was his idea? He was barely a full adult. It was taking advantage for the parents to actually go through with it. A 22 year old can’t force his parents to buy a house beyond their means. The OP was clearly more than happy to

And this. First 2 posts nail it, as per.

We don’t know what she’s been told about the situation, and people are assuming she is a gold digger - how do we know she hasn’t got her 50% of the deposit ready to go?

If my partner told me we would buy a house next year then kept stalling because of a ridiculous loan agreement he had made with his mother I would be having second thoughts about tying myself financially with him.

That's what we're trying to say! He pays the loan instead of rent. It's him that's not accepting this offer. He thinks he's being wronged.

Absolutely this. And where is the father? He seems to be absolved of any responsibility. It's mad.

His parents sound completely financially irresponsible. Poor behaviour aside I can see how he doesn’t want to keep chucking more money at the situation with no guarantee of getting it back. Just because he has a good salary he is not responsible for his parents mess. They bought a house they couldn’t afford. If my son said buy the bigger house, I’ll loan you the money I would just say no, I’ll get this one I can afford!

Loads of questions being asked that are not terribly relevant. But the way I read it the DH is probably not the father of the 2 children. He will inherit the house, the 2 children get what is most likely, since OP was a high earner. a very substantial pension pot and worth considerably more than a 20k loan.

The son has at least one asset, a sports car paid for in whole or part with his mother's money, he could sell to pay off the balance of the loan if necessary, He has a mortgage offer anyway.

A good son would be supporting his mother who is terminally ill not being abusive to her.

And while it was a stupid decision to let the son take out the loan the OP paid back £3200 of it and the son wanted to live there so he could pay minimal rent, which he never paid from the start. So he has in effect had an extra £300 a month for 18 months towards paying off the loan - OP has really paid nearly half of the loan back anyway..

Spreadsheet detailing the £300 he was supposed to pay and for how long versus how much this leaves of the loan to repay. He cannot complain if that was the deal. Do you have the request to pay rent in writing anywhere? He is an excluded lodger (I think?) as he doesn’t pay towards the mortgage. Please god don’t sell your house! Kick him out now, I think I read 7 days is reasonable as he isn’t a tenant, although as child of the owner, there may be further issues, I think. But definitely tell him to leave.

How very rude, the OP said she became very unwell. Life happens, and she didnt expect her son to be the pig he is behaving like.

It’s an unfortunate situation, tell your son his paying of the loan covers his rent, food, living expenses for the time he’s been living with you. He was meant to pay rent- he hasn’t. So seems a fair trade off that he pays the loan. £400/mth for a 25yr old earning decent money is nothing. He knows that, he has rented before and will see you are saving him a fortune.
i am concerned about the girlfriend forcing him to buy a house though. I sincerely hope he protects himself whilst doing so if he is funding it all or it will be way more than a 20k loan he has to worry about if their relationship breaks down once he’s financed the house that the girlfriend is demanding

He works in the finance industry. He knew what he was doing.