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'd love to hear the DS and girlfriend's side of the story. No one should be borrowing £20k from one of their children. Is your DS named on the mortgage? My neighbours did this with one of their kids (so three people on the mortgage) even though she didn't live there. It all went tits up when the daughter went to buy a house with her boyfriend not realising she was not entitled to any first time buyer offers and effectively was buying a second home. She was 21 when she agreed to be on her parents mortgage and had no idea of the future impact.

It’s not fair for OP to now decide that amounts she gave her son as a gift in the past now count towards payment of the loan he took in her name.

I do feel sorry for your son.

He did you a massive favour and it’s backfired and now his future is on hold.
No wonder he’s frustrated.

That doesn’t mean he gets to be nasty but tbh you’re being pretty passive about it and just saying it’s not your fault etc and not seemingly doing enough to pay him back.

You say he’s paying £400 and keeping track of it.
You say he’d previously agreed to pay £300 board.
So essentially he’s only paying an extra £100 is that correct?

I assume you’ve had conversations with him about him paying the £300 and it’s only the £100 you will be paying him back?

I also assume you’re getting disability benefits or sick pay, so why can you not pay that extra £100 yourself?

You say you need to sell the house, so what’s happening with this?
Is your home on the market etc?

He shouldn't have to. He's trying to buy his first home. He probably needs every penny he's saved.

Surely the focus needs to be to get the house sold , it’s not ideal for you now anyway so list in the New Year and downsize so he can have the equity back in the spring or maybe into summer depending how long it takes to transact.

I would be telling him of the £400 , £300 should be written off for his rent and then pay him the £100 x how many months he ends up paying. Forget about the past gifts and payments - it should mean he has more goodwill towards you though

Maybe you can explain what exactly he has paid for.

so he didn’t just lend you 20k, he took out a 20k loan that he is repaying including interest (so more than 20k) and you are supposed to repay him.

what are the repayment terms? It is likely to need repaying a lot sooner than a mortgage if this is the case so high monthly costs meaning he can afford to pay you rent.

it sounds like he is really concerned about his finances as a result of the arrangement with you and his ability to get a mortgage.

So your son still has at least 13k to pay off the loan, probably a lot more accounting for interest.

Even if you said what he'd paid so far covered board, that's still a big liability outstanding.

I can see why he's upset about that part.

Really all this should have been agreed in terms of what offsets what, not just assumed on all parts.

Throw him out. Sell the house ASAP and give him his money back.

It’s still going to be way more than 13k left after 18 months. He’s obviously paying interest on the loan.

Is he really screaming at you, or loudly and repeatedly expressing his frustration at the entire situation, with you and your H having reneged on your side of the agreement, whether it was through ill health or not. I suspect the latter. But screaming makes it sound worse than it is.

The house needs to be sold asap and the debt to your son repaid. He has been paying his board, just directly to the loan company rather than to you. As it stands, with an unsecured loan, he is unlikely to be able to buy a house of his own and his girlfriend is threatening to leave him, so I can understand why he feels his life has been ruined at the moment.

If he is meant to pay £300 board then surely you only need to pay him £100 a month? I’d sell up, and get some distance between you. He sounds like a spoiled brat and i’d be horrified if my son acted like that.

Just cut back on food by £400 pcm. Presumably he eats that much. You can’t feed and house him if he isn’t giving you the £300 pcm he promised. Stop subbing his food and pay the loan instead.

Oh I agree he shouldn't have to but it might be the lesser evil rather than paying a bunch of interest on this relatively small loan (compared to a mortgage) and then once the house is sold he gets the full amount back and can use that towards his deposit. I believe it will be harder for him to get a mortgage if he still owes money, it would be better to show he had the capacity to pay it back promptly. It should help him move out quicker too since as soon as the house is sold he's free.

Where’s he going to go?

The only reason they live in that home is because he’s helping them pay for it.
They couldn’t afford it otherwise.

So why would they throw him out.

I agree they need to sell the house asap and I’m confused why this isn’t a priority, especially when OP says they need to sell anyway.

Agree with all of this!! I’m very sorry you’re unwell op, but I’m frankly baffled by any and all the posts vilifying your son in this horrible situation!

I can understand your sons frustration, but that doesn’t justify his actions. You’d think he’d have more compassion. It’s not as if this situation was one of your choosing.
Don’t bother helping him in the future.

It’s hardly just the £100 a month though. The son has been stuck paying the loan for much longer than planned because OP can’t pay off the loan. He wants to move out but he can’t get a mortgage because he took a loan for his parents and now he’s stuck living where he doesn’t want and paying the loan for longer because his parents hasn’t kept her agreement.

He sounds awful by expressing his frustrating in such an aggressive manner but I undertand why he is frustrated.

This is a prime example of why fudging finances like this, using family members as the front guy, is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'd sell the house, pay the loan back and refund him anything he has spent and then let him go on his way. And I wouldn't be messing about with each other's finances like this ever again. It was clearly going to end in tears and the fact that none of you seemed to have foreseen that, is worrying.

If I were the son I would be wary of paying off the full loan in case OP really drags her feet selling the house & starts pressuring him to forget about it.

The father here is a grown man in his 50s/60s with 40 odd years of work behind him. It’s so gross that he isn’t paying this loan and instead is allowing his son to cover it.

Your updates explain that he took out the loan, also promised to pay £300 a month board, but who did you agree would cover the loan repayments? Your first post is unclear but suggests that perhaps it was going to be you.

Simple point but if he’s been paying £400/month for the loan for two years, and it is interest payments only, then he’s already shelled out more than £9K to pay for this arrangement and presumably still owes £20K. That’s a terrible way to pay towards a house.

Is there anywhere at all in the immediate that you can lay your hands on £20K including by borrowing interest free from other more established family members (including members of DH family)? If you were my DSis in this situation I’d lend you the money ahead of the sale of your house in order to free you all from this toxic arrangement and give you some chance of salvaging your relationship with your son long-term.

💯
It's outrageous that you dumped a huge financial millstone around a (then) 23 yr old's neck.

'He earns more than his father who is in his 60s and still working to keep a roof over our head'

And? Many of us in our 60's are still working too - you sound a bit resentful that he's earning more than his dad tbh.

Sell up and pay him back.

Easier to get a mortgage with debt than without a deposit...

Of course he shouldn’t have too he isn’t responsible for this

reading it they have enough equity for a smaller property which they are going to need to buy that’s life

This is entirely of your own doing OP, he may be behaving badly about it but so would a creditor that wasn't being paid back, they would be taking you to court now and getting CCJs against you. He doesn't have that option of not paying for a debt you caused without financially ruining himself.

You need to see beyond the behaviour, as you have caused that, don't get distracted by that, You need to pay it asap, if that means you taking out a loan in your name whether you can afford it or not that is what is needed.

Son needs to move out once paid.