Debt between family member

Tixy

I am sure the sister knows that he cannot afford the full amount. I think the only thing he can do is to write back to the solicitor in response and say this. If he could offer to up the monthly amount a little that would be good.

But he should seek clarification as to the interest rate etc and the outstanding balance. My guess (as said earlier) is that even if he was paying interest only to start then, in lieu of any other agreement, it is reasonable for him to assume that if her mortgage interest rate went down then so did what she charged him, so therefore some of the capital should have been paid (maybe not much, but some).

Anyway if he makes an offer of as much as you can afford after basic living costs and priority expenditure then if it does go to court it is possible that the judge will order that it is paid in installments.

If you have proof you tried to remortgage but were unsuccessful it might be worth keeping this in case you need to show it a judge to prove you are unable to release any equity to pay this debt.

mabski

I think your best course of action would be to try and make peace with the sister in law, try to come to some sort of agreement with her.
Explain that you are trying to remortgage your house to pay her back, inform her of the difficulties in doing that and just try to get her to give you a bit more time.
In my mind family is worth more than any amount of money so i would make every effort to make peace with her and sort this out amicably.
But thats just my opinion.

traceyjf

mabski wrote: »

I think your best course of action would be to try and make peace with the sister in law, try to come to some sort of agreement with her.
Explain that you are trying to remortgage your house to pay her back, inform her of the difficulties in doing that and just try to get her to give you a bit more time.
In my mind family is worth more than any amount of money so i would make every effort to make peace with her and sort this out amicably.
But thats just my opinion.

I think that this is the best course of action. Of course I dont want to go to court but I would love to get her money back to her ASAP

Thanks Mabski

bouncydog1

I also think that you should put together an income and outgoings statement so that you can justify to the sister what you can afford to pay.

I am not commenting on your personal circumstances because I know nothing about them, but you say you own your own home - do you also have fairly new cars, go on holiday, do you work, do you have latest gadgets etc?

If the answer to any of the above is "yes" then the sister may think that financially you are better off than you are. If you are genuinely making every reasonable effort to repay the debt - extra overtime, no holidays etc then that should demonstrate to her that you really are trying.

However if you appear to have a comfortable lifestyle and she is struggling then she is bound to be cross that the money hasn't been repaid, and might feel that a solicitors letter was needed to focus your mind on getting her repaid.

vaporate

Tell her to take a hike. No agreement between families like real bank loans are so she cant get a penny.

She is being very evil on purpose to get legal action involved.

Bring it on.

Careful_with_that_Axe

Do make sure there is a paper trail for any future repayments.

traceyjf

vaporate wrote: »

Tell her to take a hike. No agreement between families like real bank loans are so she cant get a penny.

She is being very evil on purpose to get legal action involved.

Bring it on.

My husband does want to get the money back to her but she wont take the fact he hasnt got the money to give her hence why he is paying her monthly.

traceyjf

Careful_with_that_Axe wrote: »

Do make sure there is a paper trail for any future repayments.

Direct debit set up

angel81

To be honest, if you bought a new car last year I'm not surprised that you SIL is getting p1ssed off that your OH hasn't been repaying her:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/31010391#Comment_31010391

I think you've had some very good advice on here, namely that you should provide an income and outgoings statement to show the SIL exactly how much money you can afford to repay her. She obviously thinks that you have money to spare that you should be repaying to her instead. Also, this would show the court that you have made a reasonable offer and they would likely just set the repayments at that amount

[Deleted User]

Please understand that I mean this kindly. As has been said before.., this sort of situation rarely blows up for no reason. It sounds to me that she could possibly feel that u are putting lifestyle before paying her off. If she is struggling, it could be a bit of a bitter pill for her. It may be made worse if there was a link between this loan and u selling your house that you didn't sell it while prices were high.., its going to be a while before it could raise as high a price., so she probably is realising she's stuck with this remortgage without much chance of paying it off in the near future. It has been five years I think? I'm not having a go, I'm just thinking why might she have flared up.., and the timing does seem to be linked to houses losing value so she could well be realising she's gonna have to wait a long while for repayment.

Its up to you of course, but are there things u could cut back on to pay more off so it looks like you are making more of an effort. There is plenty of advice on here about cutting back. I've cut my fuel bill by 40% recently by using electricity more carefully (saved me at least £30-£50 a month). Selling the car and getting a cheaper one if it cost thousands (pay her a lump sum). Buy clothes on ebay rather than new (I get better labels, nearly new clothes for a tenth of the cost). Find cheaper supermarkets, make more food from scratch - u can halve your shopping bill without changing your eating habits too much.., use http://www.petrolprices.com/ to find the cheapest petrol prices. If you are going on holidays., consider your options, cut the cost or cancel for a couple of years and find local things to go out to that u'd enjoy as much.

I apologise if u are already doing a lot of these things but if not, it could be worth doing to pay off your obligations to your sister and restore peace for yourselves and your family.