Money Moral Dilemma: Should I pay my parents interest?

Pollycat

Value4money wrote: »

They were kind enough to lend you the £7000 to help you out some years ago - but it sounds a bit steep to say the least that they're now asking for the full £7000 sum ON TOP OF what you've already paid over the last several years! [IF I've understood you correctly].
I'd suggest it would be fair to pay off the REMAINDER of the £7000 that you haven't yet paid, PLUS an amount equivalent to what they could have received if they'd invested the money in a decent-interest type bank account for that period of time.

I'm not sure that the (real) OP is being asked to pay anything back now.
It - at least to me - seems to be something that happened some years ago.

nyg123

It sounds like your relationship with your mother is not a good one and the Alzheimer's won't help with that. Have you got any siblings and if so what do they think? I agree that it is unfair of that the terms were changed. I think your parents finances aren't relevant, it is still their money and it is up to them if they want to loan or gift it. Yes it would be nice if your parents can afford to gift it and did that but they didn't. If I was in a position to pay the rest back with a little extra (I would include the £500 holiday in interest calculations) then I would do that. If I couldn't I would say I'm very sorry mum but I'm going to have to continue paying back £60 a month as agreed, perhaps increasing this payment.
My parents own my house and I pay rent. I will be moving in a couple of years and they will own that house and I will pay rent. I am unable to work due to extremely poor health and am very grateful for that help as it means my son and I am able to have a much nicer house. They had the money from my grandparents house after they died. The rent is not a market rent and I have not worked out what rate of return they are getting but obviously they are getting some money. This was all my parents idea, they insisted. Because of the help I have received my parents will be leaving more to my sister in their will. And that is completely fine with me. I know that I am lucky and I really appreciate and my parents know that.
Whatever the surrounding circumstances your parents still did a good thing for you and I think you need to remember that but as I've said I would stick closer to the original agreement than this new request.

Value4money

Just thought I'd add this post - as thanks to Pollycat [post #106], I was pointed to the Original Poster's post. My original post [#112] was a response to what I THOUGHT had been the original post, that was by MSE Nick [#1]. That post so edited / truncated the 'truly' original post that it distorted the over-all details..hence my response in my post #112.
I only read some of this thread after seeing it identified in the MSE e-mail...so I didn't / haven't had time to read right through all the posts - and as I rarely come into the forum, I'm not very familiar with the way things are done here.
It's easy to give an inappropriate response, when it's to a very edited, truncated post that wasn't the original one anyway..although at the time I thought it was!

ANYWAY...having read the ORIGINAL post etc., it seems that the original poster had already given their parents a £500 holiday as a 'thank you' for the £7000 loan, and the £60 per month repayments replaced the interest their dad would have been getting if he'd invested the money - so, under those circumstances, once the balance remaining of the loan from their parents had been repaid, it seems to me that happyinflorida's repayment 'duty' had been fully carried out and no more 'interest' should need to be paid to their mum [dad having since died].

System

If it was an official loan it would by law have to tell you the interest rate upfront for fairness. Family need the money and interest more than banks do, but since it'd all be inherited anyway there wouldn't be much practical point in them asking interest, so if I was the lender I wouldn't be asking

happyinflorida

Thanks for all the responses everyone.

For those that wanted to know how long ago this happened - when my parents originally asked for full repayment - that was 18 years ago.

I posted this question to the weekly question - as that is what I read each week. I don't go on the forum very often and am not familiar with it.

I also just wanted to know what other people would do in these circumstances.

I do feel my parents were unfair with us in view of the holiday we paid for them to have, the financial circumstances we were in at that time - by repaying them the full amount they asked for, it left us with far less money and consequently meant we ended up in a much poorer position.

My parents brought me up with the "you must be honest" type philosophy - which included all finances. They told me everything and expected me to tell them everything. So I believed the lies they were telling me, as I'd never known any other way of life and my parents would discuss their finances for hours.

Just a couple of years before my father died he was going on so much about "not being able to manage" that I asked him if he'd like me to help him and he said yes. I asked him to write me out a sheet of paper with his income/s and all outgoings.

Looking back at this time - I really wonder why on earth he did all this or if it just amused him. He must have spent a lot of time on his expenditure sheet because it showed no money left over each month at all on very basic outgoings.

Obviously it wasn't a true picture of what was actually going on but this is how my parents were with me.

It's easy to say things like forget and forgive - but this is my whole life, I am an only child - so no brothers and sisters to discuss this with.

I was brought up with very, very little - because my parents told me they had nothing. I did not get new toys - everything, including my clothes was secondhand.

It is my belief that my parents - who married (at the time) late in life, my mother wanted children - I don't think my father did - were shocked when we they had me at just how much work a baby really is. I think they were very unhappy but stuck with me and resented me arriving in their perfect world.

My mother was not a good one - to me if a baby cries during the night or whatever time, you feed it, or help it (it's not only a feed it may want or need) never mind if you've only had very little sleep. My mother actually had the cheek to tell me never to ignore a crying baby - I told her I never would anyway but later - after my father died, I found a short diary she'd kept whilst my dad had been away on business. She would stay up till 3 or 5am amusing herself, writing letters to him or reading and when I started crying at 6,7 or whenever - she would ignore me! I had a feeling this was what had happened but no proof before.

I have grown up sons now and I know I was a good mum. I am happily married (my husband has been my rock since I met him!) and we believe in helping our sons out - I would give them anything I could as I believe children should be helped financially if I can afford to do so. They were brought up with a clear understanding of money, how to save, how not to borrow too much and get into financial difficulties ie over committment and so far, they appear to be like us, good with their finances.

People - obviously have different opinions but I posted this question as I was interested to see if the majority believed it was wrong for my parents to ask for full repayment of the £7000 in view of what they'd said at the start. I'm glad to see that most agree with me but there are a few that scare me with what they think is right and wrong!

Happy Christmas everyone

Pollycat

I can understand how a lot of what happened was upsetting.

Do you feel you have moved on from how your parents treated you?
I'm asking because I wonder why you posted about something that happened so long ago.

I do think that the thread would have taken a very different course if you had just posted what you've since explained rather than letting MSE chop your post about.

Don't be a stranger on the forum. You've seen how easy it is to post.

JimmyTheWig

Fujiko wrote: »

I can't believe there are parents who would expect interest on any money they lent to their children. Given the abysmal interest rates on savings, how much would the parents really have lost?

The trouble is, by giving their child the loan the parents were £60 a month worse off in terms of their pension.

It turns out, then, that this was a pretty poor value way for the real OP to have borrowed the money.
I wonder who realised that this was poor value at the time?
I wonder if there were alternatives.

The parents shouldn't lose out on this deal.
They should get their £60 a month for life.
If the real OP wanted to stop paying this money each month then they would need to give the parents a lump sum that would be the equivalent of £60 a month for the rest of their lives.

It sounds like the parents have been out of order on numerous occasions. But I don't think that this means they should lose out when lending their child some money.
I think the problems with the loan were (a) it actually cost the parents a lot to lend it and (b) the terms were assumed rather than spelled out.

tgroom57

I think at least one of the parents were dysfunctional.

happyinflorida

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

The trouble is, by giving their child the loan the parents were £60 a month worse off in terms of their pension.

It turns out, then, that this was a pretty poor value way for the real OP to have borrowed the money.
I wonder who realised that this was poor value at the time?
I wonder if there were alternatives.

The parents shouldn't lose out on this deal.
They should get their £60 a month for life.
If the real OP wanted to stop paying this money each month then they would need to give the parents a lump sum that would be the equivalent of £60 a month for the rest of their lives.

It sounds like the parents have been out of order on numerous occasions. But I don't think that this means they should lose out when lending their child some money.
I think the problems with the loan were (a) it actually cost the parents a lot to lend it and (b) the terms were assumed rather than spelled out.

No they lied about taking the money out of their pension - so they were not losing £60 a month income at all. They had an income of £2500 per month and were extremely well off but kept it well hidden from me, claiming to be struggling to manage. They had no mortgage either.

Where they dreamt up the figure of £60 per month from I haven't a clue and will never know. We paid them this figure even when my husband was out of work and we were claiming benefits because they had said they needed it to live on, we couldn't afford to pay our mortgage and they knew this. They had £35000 in the bank and didn't even offer to pay our mortgage arrears - they did a marvellous act of telling us (we hadn't asked for the money, we wouldn't have done that) how they'd really like to be able to help us out but unfortunately couldn't afford to do so as they hadn't got £1000 - my mum should have got an oscar for her acting ability as she'd only 3 weeks earlier paid in £30.000 to a savings account in her name!

I am very angry over what they did to us and we ended up selling our home to clear the mortgage arrears which we felt were like a £million to us and we'd never be able to clear them.

I would never dream of treating my sons so badly - it was not love they showed to me but you can't choose your parents and I was very, very unlucky with them.

Mojisola

happyinflorida wrote: »

I am very angry over what they did to us and we ended up selling our home to clear the mortgage arrears which we felt were like a £million to us and we'd never be able to clear them.

I would never dream of treating my sons so badly - it was not love they showed to me but you can't choose your parents and I was very, very unlucky with them.

This seems to have happened some years ago but you are keeping the anger alive. You can't sort this out now with your parents so you need to find ways of letting go of it - for the sake of your own health. Carrying round such resentment and anger - no matter how justified it is - is not good for you.

You are the only one keeping the hurt going.