Advice please re step son

debsue

My step son is 23 and lives at home with us. He has a job which brings him almost £1000 per month, a loan with HSBC for approx £6000 which he has to start paying for next month, a Next account which I am not sure how much he owes, I think less than £100. He is maxed with his overdraft at £300, and he owes us about £600, we have had no keep from him for weeks.

My problem (apart for him!) is that my husband is now on his way to the police station to pick him up as he was found to be drink driving last night, twice over the limit. He will lose his licence and with that his job.

We will not bail him out of his financail responsibilities (again) and my husband thinks he will have to declare himself bankrupt.

However I am asking you wonderful people for your advice before my husband gets home, so I can offer some wise words to him. I hpe ths makes sense.

Thank you

Debs

Biffa

(((Big HUgs)))

Hopefully this will be a wake up call for him. has he registered with the local councils etc for housing?

Without knowing all the ins-and outs, bankruptcy is a drastic option if he only owes around £6k. What was the loan for? Presumably he has a car, so can he sell it to raise some cash towards his debts?

chevalier

Its such a tricky situation isn't it. The age where they should be standing on his own two feet, and the fact that he is step family
I can only tell you what happened in my own experience. I also had a step brother living with my mum and step dad. He got a good job where my step dad worked, and my step dad stood guarantor on a loan to get step son a small motor bike so he could get to and from work (was shift work). In the end step son did a flit from the job (got sacked), and crashed the bike, and stopped paying for it. So step dad had to repay the full amount.

After that we pretty much left him to it, and it went all down hill from there. Ended up going to prison for not paying rent. Has 5 kids now by two women, none of whom he pays any money for. He always has some scheme to make him rich and to make up for it all, but they are all in his head.

It was hard for my step dad to watch him self destruct, but helping him out would not have helped either. My step dad had other family to worry about, so just concentrated on helping the children my step brother fathered.

So whilst you can offer your support, offering money won't help him IMHO.

Best of luck with supporting him
chev

debsue

The bank lan was wasted on god knows what and the car is not worth much. He is registered for housing, but it is complicated. My husband was a single parent for many years, and every time something happens (we have put up with an awful lot over the years) he sees it as a reflection on himself. I cant see him throwing the step son out and I doubt he will leave on his own accord!
Thanks

Eager_Elephant

I would say don't rush anything.

He may or may not be put on police bail so that he cannot drive but most of the time they are allowed to continue driving until the court case so it could be a few months before he is banned (if at all)

If the above is the scenario then he needs to be looking for either alternative transport to get to work or looking for a job closer to home.

As for owing you money I think he needs to start paying you asap, some children who still live with there parents think it is ok to not pay the parents as it won't matter. I think you need to get tough.

If he ends up on JSA and out of work then of course bankruptcy is a possibility but try not to rush into this.

Hope everything works out ok.

EE

CLAPTON

maybe the drink driving situation maybe a wake up call for him.

as already mentioned it will be some time before he actually goes to court and can use this time to either find an alternative way to get to work or find alternative work.

if he owes only about 6000 he's probably not paying much more than 200 or 300 a month, so where is the rest of his money going. if he's not paying you anything then the money must be going somewhere. maybe he has other debts or in wasting his money in other ways...maybe time to talk about money, budgetting etc with him., but at the moment bankruptcy seems unnecessary.

lynzpower

morning

If hes making a grand a month, not paying keep, and has a banger of a motor, why has he just taken out a bank loan?

What does he spend it on? You must see anything delivered? Or does he always seem to have new clobber?

He may well not be entitled to JSA if hes lost hisjob due to something he has actively chosen to do ( drink driving probably would fall under this im afriad)

I guess its time to mention freecycle to him in the hope that someone will give him a bike,

Could you sit down with him (or get dad to do it?) and get him to read whats been written here and to do an SOA if he actively wants to sort himself out.

In all fairness bankrupcy is not a good idea, for such a small amount of money. Additionally, if hes only just taken out a bank loan ( must be if he only has to start paying it this month) then chances are it could be viewed that he has taken on this debt specifically to go BR. this can be seen as fraud.

To all intents he sounds like a healthy fit lad who can hold down a job. Its just he has made a stupid decisin to drink drive and quite rightly there are serous repercussions. SOmeone I know was dumb enough to drink drive and the person he hit eventually died. the drunk driver lost his 50k a year job and ended up temping locally. Hes back on his feet now, in that hes got a better paying job, but hes got a commplete ban and wont be able to drive for the foreseeable. However, he can still work.

What will your S-son learn if he goes BR now? That he gets bailed out when he ballses things up. Dont misunderstand me, my parents have bailed me out more times than I can remember- but I do know from years of this, it hasnt done me any good whatsoever.

Glass_Half_Empty??

Regards to drink driving offences now, the law is very keen to get the offender off the road and as such have introduced courts to be available the very next day that you are caught on(working day) so he may well in court tomorrow and as he was over by twice the limit there is no way any judge in the country will let him off. It is an automatic ban full stop now although you can reduce the ban by going to sessions with other people in the same boat. I have three friends that have been caught for this and they were all banned the next day.

Dr.Shoe_2

If he depends on his licence for his job and it's his first offence then the ban may be reduced and substituted with a large fine instead.

If he just "needs" his car to get to and from work then he would almost certainly be banned to the full extent of the law.

debsue

Court on 30 October, thankyou for your replies.

debsue

We dont know where his money goes, we have talked to him about budgeting etc until we are blue in the face, we just get lie after lie from him. If he loses his job, doesnt get job seekers, where does he go from there?