My Dad 'tricked' me into giving him £5,000 & now can't afford to pay me it back

Elvisia

One thing that sticks out is that the father has dealt very badly with his daughter's finances and there aren't any consequences to his actions. I would work out what I felt was a reasonable amount for him to pay back (taking out money for wedding dress etc) and decide on what is an achievable repayment plan for him. This is less about not losing a father over 5k, it's more about building a relationship which can go onwards. There has to be some degree of cause and effect - "when you do this, this is what happens and this is how I feel" - rather than saying to him it's OK to have done this which is what you would be doing if you wrote it off. Even if he doesn't pay anything back because he can't, you will at least have shown him the right way to go about things, in the same way you'd teach a child the difference between right and wrong. Also if he's able to take out a loan for a car I don't see why he can't take out a loan to cover some payments on your repayment plan, again he's making the same financial mistakes.

He reminds me of the family of a friend of mine who ran up debts then declared themselves bankrupt (quite happily from what I remember) and managed to immediately borrow more money at a very high rate in order to go on holiday to Florida as they 'needed the break as they hadn't been able to get away because of the bankrupty' and merely went back on the debt roundabout again. They just didn't learn from their mistakes, and to some extent you need to stop your father from doing this.

Edwardia

My father is dead but if he had ever taken money from me to invest and used it to pave his driveway I would be taking him to court. Not only did OP steal his daughter's inheritance and lie about it, he must have badly dented her faith and trust in him and everyone else. That's she bounced back and gotten married and is debt free herself, is indicative of the strength of character she has despite losing her mother at a young age and having a selfish father.

patchwork_cat

Monkeynut wrote: »

Agreed- I don't think I will ever be able to understand people who choose to spend so much money on a wedding that they are willing to start their married lives together in massive amounts of debt.
Good for you for saving for it.

Do let us know what happens with regards to this situation though, as (ignoring about half the posts, who yes are entitled to their opinion, but probably aren't that bothered by the outcome) we generally like to see how things end up going.
I know I'm a right old nose bag for one!!

Agree re wedding I will never ever understand why people spend £15 to £20 K average on a wedding. That is a decent deposit on a house FGS. Well done OP to have budget well for your wedding.

kaylz39

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Agree re wedding I will never ever understand why people spend £15 to £20 K average on a wedding. That is a decent deposit on a house FGS. Well done OP to have budget well for your wedding.

To be honest we did spend about that, but thats what we wanted to do- we saved hard & came out of it clear of debt after having 'our' perfect wedding

I don't understand would spend that amount of money when they physically cant afford it, if you can afford it and aren't having to borrow then its up to you what you spend on your wedding.

My brother-in-law and sister-in law spent a similar amount on their wedding but now 3 years later they're still paying for it as they had to re mortgage to have a fancy wedding...not good.

brodev

Sometimes when I read posts on forums like this I am made aware of other people's morality. Very often the posts show more about the morality of the posters rather on the people they are commenting about. This thread has been an excellent example of this. You can read what you like into my morality.

purplebutterfly

I really have no good financial advice to offer but I wanted to add my voice of support for the OP.

My mum stole from me - and, yes, it IS theft - not a large amount but still it was £500 that had been put in trust for me to receive on my 18th birthday by a deceased relative.

In my case there were no mitigating circumstances - she never intended to pay the money back, whereas the OP's father may well have meant to - and she forged my signature, phoned up pretending to be me etc etc all to get her hands on money I never knew existed until it was too late.

My point is that parents are not just parents - they are PEOPLE who must accept responsibility for their actions. Why should the OP allow her dad to get away with it when she sure as hell wouldn't allow a stranger to? If it wasn't her dad that had done this, you'd find plenty of people calling him a confidence trickster. Why does a DNA bond change this?

She is NOT a bad daughter/bad person/bad ANYTHING for wanting back what is rightly hers. I'm pretty certain her mum never intended to pay for her ex-husband's new driveway or the money would have been left to him in the first place.

It makes me so angry when people say "oh it's your dad, just shrug and hope he's learned his lesson". It must be lovely for the people who have such close, trusting bonds with their parents that they would hand over their last penny to them - sadly, some of us do not have the luxury of blind faith.

elvis86

brodev wrote: »

Sometimes when I read posts on forums like this I am made aware of other people's morality. Very often the posts show more about the morality of the posters rather on the people they are commenting about. This thread has been an excellent example of this. You can read what you like into my morality.

Yeah, some people's moral compass is way off kilter and their views are heavily distorted by weird ideas of entitlement, the perceived "value" of relationships and fahhh-mily.

IMO, a father who betrays his grieving daughter in this way is probably not a father worth having, and shouldn't be afforded priviledges and put on some kind of pedestal just because he once shared a bed with your mum (which is, after all, all it takes to father a child).

I'd rather have no father than have a scumbag like that in my life. He's obviously incapable of fulfilling a fatherly role, so why bother trying to preserve a relationship with him purely "because he's your dad"?

purplebutterfly

Oh and all the comments about it being better to have a rubbish relationship than none at all.............:eek:

You will be perfectly happy without your father, trust me. Don't allow this man to cause you one more minute of pain or stress. Sort out the money issue legally and then let him get on with the destruction of the rest of his life.

Concentrate on yourself, your marriage and your future family. You only get one life and you owe it to yourself to be happy.

chesky369

OK OP you've had quite a lot of support from posters on here. Ignore the others.

Go to your dad and say, unless he signs up to and sticks to a repayment plan (you decide how much), you will go to his mother and ask for her help with this matter.

vlad_the_impaler

The attitude of some on here: 'forgive him the debt', 'this is 1/2 your fault', 'blood is thicker than water' speaks volumes about the respective poster's own moral compasses and attitudes to money. And none of them good.

This is about trust, and doing the right thing.

Borrowing money to buy pretty things, and then not paying it back = bad. I don't care about the whys and the intentions. Borrowing to consume, and deceiving your own daughter to obtain money to spend on consuming is morally bankrupt. He did not need it to buy a kidney, he used it to block pave his driveway!! He just as well as spent it on cocaine and hookers morally speaking.

Clearly this is a person who cannot be trusted, and you need to remember that in you future dealings with him. Take a look here for other possible personality traits:

http://www.oregoncounseling.org/Handouts/PsychopathicPersonality.htm