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

Apples2

Well this is unfolding into a classic thread :j:j

Vikipollard wrote: »

Given that you do not know the circumstances which led to the debt ~

Sadly for your ilk, the reasons for failing to repay a debt are completely irrelevent.

You may see a gulf betwen you and those other people who end up in debt and unable to repay, the reality is you are both the same.

Back to the real topic - the dad being accountable or not is neither here nor there. The simple (and it is simple) fact is that he has no money, minus £20,000 in fact
The choices are simple:

1. Forget about it and maintain your Family relationship - maybe approach this many years down the line
2. Hammer into him right now, it was YOUR money, not his so you demand it back right now, and suffer the family fallout.

I could never advocate the destruction of a family for any amount. Blood is thicker and all that.

Hope my kids don't turn out like some of you guys.

Glennn

Apples2 wrote: »

The choices are simple:

1. Forget about it and maintain your Family relationship - maybe approach this many years down the line
2. Hammer into him right now, it was YOUR money, not his so you demand it back right now, and suffer the family fallout.

Or 3. Ask for some sort of payment plan and try and rebuild the relationship over time.

Evilm

If you want to try to pursue this try to get him into an email conversation about it and try to get him to admit in writing that he took the money he promised to invest for you and spent it on his own luxuries.

Its the only way you are likely to get anywhere with it. Then (IF you want to pursue it) either speak to a lawyer about fraud or speak to someone about getting a charge put on his house. Then his solicitor will be forced to pay you when (IF) he ever sells his house or changes the mortgage company etc.

I can understand both sides of the comments on here but "Its your father" doesn't have much wash with me and I think he should be paying it back.

kaylz39

chesky369 wrote: »

You said that your sister is younger than you - what happened to her money?

She's only 19 so still in a trust fund.
Funnily enough he actually asked my sister a few times to give him £20k to pay off my step-mum so he can keep the house and move his new gf in- I've obviously told my sister not to do this.

kaylz39

mrcow wrote: »

How much was the deposit on the wedding venue and the dress?

I think you could be overestimating how much your £5k would have been worth in the current climate.

He only paid the initial deposit of my dress which was £250- I paid the rest. He paid the deposit for my venue which was £750. When I've tried to work out how much interest an ISA would have earnt me, I estimate it to be around the above amounts. So I would assume I would have around £5k left.

kaylz39

SailorSam wrote: »

Could you go to see a solicitor or at least someone like the CAB and ask them do they think your Dad has committed a fraud.
Legal definition of fraud is ......
"Dishonest abuse of a position of authority or trust either through actions or omission, for personal gain or to another".
Could it be said your Dad was in a position of trust ? And did he try and gain by not investing the money he took from you ?

I'm not a solicitor or lawyer, i don't know. I've just had a quick look at a few sites on the Internet and wondered if that sort of thing would apply to you. Perhaps others will know better than i.

From looking at the definitions I would definitely say it would come under fraud, but like another poster said I cant prove it wasn't a gift. I would like to think my Dad wouldn't lie to my face and tell people it was a gift, but who know's? I think my soon to be ex step-mum would also tell the truth.

Badger_Lady

Miggie wrote: »

And 5000 is a hell of a lot of money to write off - being compassionate has little to do with that.

A loving relationship with the only father you'll ever have is a hell of a lot to write off too

No matter who 'started it' by doing wrong, the daughter is now in a position to either repair or destroy the father-daughter bond. She is not in a position to extract money from him (since he has none). Any action she takes now will have therefore have the negative consequences without the positive ones.

Don't write anything off, just wait.

pqrdef

kaylz39 wrote: »

(this may be completely wrong, but at 18 I didn't know otherwise)

The other creditors aren't going to want to whistle for their money while you get paid first. Quite the reverse. They've got contracts, you haven't.

Your dad didn't borrow your money, he conned it out of you by fraud. At that point, it was gone. Stolen. You had no contract for repayment.

There may be an issue of criminal compensation, but if I were awarding compensation, you wouldn't get much, because I would see massive contributory negligence on your part. Not knowing any better is no excuse. At 18, you were legally adult. The law considered you were old enough to take personal responsibility for knowing better, so if you neglected to make it your business to know better, that was your fault. As an adult, you're expected not to hand over cheques for £5000 without knowing what you're doing. It wasn't anybody else's job to tell you that your dad was spinning you a complete !!!!-and-bull story, it was your job to be a grown-up and figure it out. At 18, it's not your dad's job to look after your best interests, it's yours.

What's confusing you is that you expected the money to be sitting there available for the asking. But that was your mistake. You never had any evidence for the existence of this ISA, and it was always pretty unlikely, as you would have discovered if you'd got round to taking personal responsibility for your affairs.

Writing that cheque was an expensive mistake. Many people have made those. But there's nothing you can do about it except write it off to experience, unless you're prepared to pursue it as a criminal matter. Even if you can claim that the money was a loan, you can only join the queue with the other creditors.

Being cheated by your dad is bound to hurt, but it doesn't really change anything.

kaylz39

Apples2 wrote: »

Well this is unfolding into a classic thread :j:j

Sadly for your ilk, the reasons for failing to repay a debt are completely irrelevent.

You may see a gulf betwen you and those other people who end up in debt and unable to repay, the reality is you are both the same.

Back to the real topic - the dad being accountable or not is neither here nor there. The simple (and it is simple) fact is that he has no money, minus £20,000 in fact
The choices are simple:

1. Forget about it and maintain your Family relationship - maybe approach this many years down the line
2. Hammer into him right now, it was YOUR money, not his so you demand it back right now, and suffer the family fallout.

I could never advocate the destruction of a family for any amount. Blood is thicker and all that.

Hope my kids don't turn out like some of you guys.

So would you lie to your children telling them you're going to invest a large chunk of their money & then spend it on a luxury item for yourself and continue to keep that lie up for the next 7 years?

If this is something you would do, then I totally understand your responses. Me, personally, would NEVER do that! As its been said before, he lived beyond his means and lied to his own daughter to fund that.

So given how my Dad treat me at the age of 18, why I should I show remorse when I'm older and wiser and find his actions even more hurtful?

Glennn

Badger_Lady wrote: »

A loving relationship with the only father you'll ever have is a hell of a lot to write off too

No matter who 'started it' by doing wrong, the daughter is now in a position to either repair or destroy the father-daughter bond. She is not in a position to extract money from him (since he has none). Any action she takes now will have therefore have the negative consequences without the positive ones.

Don't write anything off, just wait.

Doesn't sound like much of a bond remains....... I would write off any relationship if the other person screwed me over......

Remember, you can choose your friends (so you choose wisely hopefully!) but you cannot choose your family. For that reason I find my bond with friends is stronger than that with family.