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.

Because he is. Based on the OP it was clearly supposed to be that the parents relayed the loan and relayed it over a shorter period of time. If the DS moves out he is still liable for the £400 a month for the next 4 or so years! Thats hardly comparable to £300 board while you live somewhere. He doesn’t want to live at home paying a £400 loan in exchange for board until his 30s.

he was 22! He may have started working in the financial sector but that doesn’t mean he knew what he was doing!

I'm really sorry for your situation, OP. Your son's behaviour sounds like a nightmare. It seems like he had the right instinct to help you but was too immature to deal with the consequences and your changed circumstances. It must be so tough on all of you. Maybe you were mistaken to go along with his plan, but it's done now. I think your DH is quite right to tell him to back off and calm down. The situation is going to be sorted, he just needs to grow up and behave better. All the best to you, OP.

He was 22. He “worked in finance” for like 12 months.
The grown adults in their 60s really should have been the ones to have more sense.

Sadly this sounds like a GF issue rather than your sons issue. How dare she demand & threaten to dump him if her house agenda is'nt met. I also blame your son for tolerating this behaviour & taking it out on you. I'm sorry OP I have no answers but those are my thoughts. I hope your recovery goes well.

God Almighty OP, this beggars belief, the poison of money!
I am very sorry for your diagnosis and inability to work and having to deal with this. Please take care

Don't you think that becoming severely ill with limited mobility and this unable to continue working is a factor? A little empathy, understanding and patience wouldn't go amiss, but it seems that the son is putting the gf before his mother. Any decent gf would suggest sitting down as a family and calmly trying to find the best solution for all parties

You've really fucked him over and no wonder your DH doesn't care as he stands to inheritance the house.

Are you seriously suggesting there's people out there working in these industries that are clueless?

Responsible adults are aware that life can throw curve balls at you (illness, redundancy etc) especially as they age - therefore they try and avoid risky financial decisions and overstretching themselves when most are paying off their mortgage if they can, not adding more debt!

Is she demanding and threatening, or is she just trying to get on with her own life? Precisely how many people do you think ought to be beholden to OP and her DH's poor budgeting?

This mess is down to OP and her husband buying a house they couldn't afford. If you have to borrow money off your adult children to buy something, you can't afford it. That's regardless of any perceived financial savvy on the son's part.

Give me a break. He knew full well, after a period of renting, that he could use the situation to live at home paying a nominal sum, thus accruing a ton of disposable income. You're being bloody naive if you think he took on that debt for the love of his mother.

Understanding the numbers is one thing, anticipating all the implications on his personal life us quite another. 22 is very young.

People become unwell and he lives in the house too as a grown adult. What was the OP to do? Let everything pile on top so all three are evicted?.....Take a loan, pay him back and then remove him off your will. He deserves nothing.

At 22 realistically he had worked in the “finance industry” for a year at best..

@rightinthedavinamccalls worked in the finance industry? For what, like 12months max? You'd be comfortable taking financial and house buying advice from someone who is just a recent graduate?

Why can’t your son continue to pay the £400. And you pay him £100 and he continues to board for free. That’s confusing me the most. Just make up the shortfall?!!

One would think people in their 60's, one of whom is apparently semi retired, might think to anticipate incapacitation....

I feel for your situation. From your sons point of view he has not paid the £300 rent but he is instead paying the £400 loan so is infact paying £100 more than agreed. It's just going to the lawn which you dant service.
If he paid rent onto he would be paying £700 instead of £300 originally agreed.
I can see why he isn't happy, but he needs to work with you and not demand ridiculous things, like you needing to show you're job hunting etc.
But you can not expect him to pay rent on top of the loan. He has to pay the loan as you can't and if he didn't his credit is the one that would be a problem

Quite a lesson for him then isn't it. My mother had cancer when I was 23, I could never ever imagine a scenario that would make me shout and cause her upset. He should just pay the loan (instead of rent and bills that he's very lucky not to be paying), assure her that it's all in hand and support her in getting through treatment.

This is what I want to know.

There was obviously an initial agreement.

Then this changed when OP got ill and couldn’t afford it.

They then would have had a conversation and made a second agreement that DS would cover the £400, either instead of the £300 or on top of it.

Without knowing what the explicit agreement was, none of us can know who is BU or not.

I’m beyond confused by your question? A great many people in all industries are clueless, finance is no exception or we wouldn’t have had a banking crash.
”in finance” is so vague firstly and 22 with only a years experience in the real world is incredibly young. His 60 something parents should have had a lot more sense than to overextend themselves to the point of borrowing from their child who was only starting out in the world and leaving themselves totally unable to keep their financial commitments.

I don’t really believe that OP, who has said her son is pretty much just asking for his money back whenever they talk, has huge insight into what he and his girlfriend have agreed to re house financing. For example, when my husband and I were considering buying properties that needed considerable work, we agreed that if we did that, he would pay the deposit and then I would fund the renovations as things needed to be paid for.

I remember that song? Awful country type thing?!?!