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.

Yes, this.
Why did you move when you couldn't actually cover all the costs yourself?

How did you explain the 20k to the mortgage company?

Stop engaging with him.

Sell the house and pay him what you consider is fair and with an explanation as to why. Let him fight you for the rest.

Make sure he is not in your will.

Yeah, imagine it from the GF’s perspective. They’re keen to buy their own place but, rather than having a deposit saved up, he has the opposite - a substantial loan with £400 per month repayments to make. What are they supposed to do?! Sounds like a nightmare.

Obviously no excuse for his abusive behaviour though! But I don’t really understand what OP thinks the solution is. Is he supposed to just forget about the loan?

Create your own spreadsheet with monthly rent, the car loan that you paid off and anything else you have paid for and give that to him

That makes no sense. He took out a 20K loan. The interest will be horrendous on that! Whatever he would ‘owe’ in rent would fall far short of the interest on the loan he has taken out.

The OP needs to sell, give the son the amount that will pay off the loan (which will now be in excess of the initial loan due to interest!), then fuck him off. Coming on Mumsnet to complain is a bit rich, the priority should be sticking the house on the market pronto.

This seems very chaotic, OP. A terrible idea to pressure your very young son to take out such a huge loan! I think you probably know, but this was not good parenting!

He sounds awful, but you need to pay that loan back to equalise the balance between you.

When you do, which should be your first priority, you need to stop all being so financially reliant on one another.

He needs to move out and you need to take out a loan yourself to pay it back now.

You cant chuck someone out of a house they have a financial interest in, which is why I asked whether there is a separate charge on the property
No he shouldnt shout and scream, but I think I would shout and scream if someone had done this to me, when did she get ill, why havent they sold up yet, why havent they taken their own loan, do they have other things they could have sold to pay off the debt, is OP making sure she doesnt have any case available in case it affects her payout

You dont know any of these things, and this might be what is making him angry

Exactly what the fuck is going on with your finances - do you currently have spreadsheets of what your spending is, outgoing ve incomings

and you also seem to think the £300 is separate from the loan so he should be paying that but the loan as well even though you should be paying the loan

i suspect years of overspending and needing now to live in London with no planning for what happens when incomings drop substantially may be to blame

but you need to pay off the loan and set him free and see what if any relationship can be salvaged

and move including if needed out of London and actually get some proper financial advice

getting a loan to cover moving in your 60s is lunacy

I'm so sorry for your illness and health problems, that's really terrible. And he shouldn't be treating you like that.

At the same time, like PPs, I don't see it as him forcing you to sell; you'd have to do that anyway because without his input, you simply can't afford it any more. No fault of your own, but not his fault either and he's not forcing anything, he's just no longer holding back the tide. I can also see why he's angry if not getting the money back has spoiled his own life plans, including those with his partner. I also don't think it's fair to hold things like private education against him. We choose to have children, we choose to take on the costs of raising them. We hope that our relationship will develop so they appreciate it, but at the end of the day it wasn't ever a two way deal that they agreed to, and they don't owe us for any of that stuff. We did it because we wanted to.

He lent you his own money. He said he wanted to move in and you didn’t say that’s fine, it will cost you £400 a month - and it sounds like he would have refused because obviously he meant that if he lent you the money he wanted to live with you rent free. Yes, other people charge their adult DC but their adult DC haven’t lent them 20k interest free to pay for their house. You paid off his car finance but you told him at the time that was a gift. So he accepted it as a gift. You say “he has paid all the monthly payments” - does this mean that he has covered your mortgage payments while you have been unable to work?

He’s only 25, however much he earns, and he doesn’t have very much life experience whereas you do.

I don’t want to say he’s acting well or even reasonably, but others have jumped in straight away comparing your situation to the far more ordinary situation of having adult DC in the house not paying and being difficult in various ways.

That’s not your situation and part of you needs to accept he’s very angry with you and if he chooses to express that by not attending a family party that is hardly surprising.

Agree that he shouldn’t shout at you but if this means that he has revealed that his GF is completely fed up and taking it out on him, then at least you have more understanding of what is going on for him.

You asked if you are BU - I’m sorry you are going through this, but yes possibly you are.

If I understand correctly he’s taken out a 20k loan and makes repayments of £400 pcm. He gives you no money towards bills? His £400 pcm has been VERY cheap rent for living in London if that is the case.
I would sell the house, repay him his £20k minus £400 x months he’s lived there.
Or £20k minus £300 x months he’s lived there if that makes you feel better.
He does sound like an entitled freeloader. And I suspect gf thinks there’s money but that’s for her to find out.

How long has he been living with you without paying the £300 per month? Take this off the total you owe him for a start. Then tell him you’ll be paying him £100 per month for the remainder. £400 minus his rent.

I didn’t get that at all! I’ll have to reread but read that he agreed to pay £300 a month towards living expenses but isn’t paying it. Nevertheless, £400 for rent is ridiculously cheap for board and lodging anywhere and he is abusive. I wouldn’t give him house room, especially as OP is ill.

I think so many people haven't understood the op, which is understandable as it's extremely confusing, that the responses to the thread are pointless.

I would start again op.

Don't just use 'he'. Say whether you mean your son or husband.

Detail in the op what he is actually paying for, what he actually gave you, and what you are actually paying for.

As a slight aside, my daughter 16, eats more than £400 a month, (particular diet) so he is in no way covering his keep.

Exactly this. I certainly don't support any absue from the son, that's completely unacceptable but some of the context is that ops son has given them 20k, and paying the mortgage but op doesn't seem to think this is relevant. you wasn't short of 20k due to your age op, you was short because you couldn't get the money and you proceeded anyway. And the 'equity' at this stage of the purchase is just the deposit surely. How much equity have you built up in such a short space of time and what mortgage costs 400 a month ??? I don't think you see the gravity of pressure you have placed on your son and this might explain why he's so angry with you that said he has absolutely no right to be abusive and if he continues then maybe he should leave to live with the gf until the sale of your house goes thru. Not sure why you couldn't get a cheaper house in the first place if that's what you're doing right now.

@crystalize exactly what my DH said to him yesterday.

Not sure I have read it right?

He took out a loan of £20k for you?

He has been paying the loan which is £400 a month?

You have been paying the mortgage?

Is that correct?

Oh dear, this is a bad situation. Your sons abuse is unacceptable but I can also see that he is in a desperate situation as he's trapped and unable to buy his own home unless the £20k loan in his name is paid off.

What was the original plan to get the 20k paid off? That you would pay it off while you were still earning? By when? What is your plan to pay it off now?

It sounds like you severely overstretched yourself with this house even before you became ill (which I'm sorry about) and that was very unwise. If you are of an age to have adult children you really ought to have aimed to be mortgage free not taking on a bigger one!

I don't think you can gripe about him but paying board. He agreed to pay £300pm but instead he's lumbered paying the £400 pm loan that you were meant to be covering. So he's actually paying more than he bargained for.

Unless you can raise funds in another way I think you'll have to sell up as your son is unable to buy his own home unless you do.

Is the property on the market yet?
Are you receiving any income from sick pay from work?
Do you have stocks and shares or other investments you can sell/cars you can sell

So at the age of 23 you encouraged him to commit mortgage fraud by lending you £20k which I'm assuming he had to borrow — hence the £400pm payments. You were feckless/ reckless enough to commit to buying a property you couldn't actually afford and you encouraged your son to get into debt to sub you — yes? It seems pretty rum of you to have exploited him in this way when things looked good, and be turning on him now there's a spanner in the works. I've never heard of decent adults/ parents borrowing from their children at this stage of their lives, particularly when they have children who quite clearly will need money for buying their own property down the line. I'm not sure who's been abusive here, but you were the adults when you got yourselves into this mess.

Hats off to your son for keeping such meticulous records, I say. I'm sorry that you're so ill that you won't be able to keep working, but presumably at some point you'll have a lump sum and a pension. And as you say you're downsizing for access issues anyway.

Can you afford the £400 repayments if he does move out?

the loan is going to have a massive impact on his ability to buy as £400 a month will impact his mortgage repayments. He doesn’t want to live with you and he wants the loan gone can you do that?

can you afford your house because if you can’t you need to sell

Why on earth would you allow your adult child to take a loan for you to move house? If you earned enough over the years to pay for private schools and sports cars why on earth did you need such a large mortgage on a home now that you can’t afford?
If your son is paying your £400 a month loan for your house then it’s reasonable he doesn’t pay board on top.
Take the equity out of the house and pay him back. This is all so messy and unnecessary.