Sister in law greed

mrs-stressed

I have a sister in law who is holding me to ransom over a loan made to me by my recently deceased brother.  Loan was over 20yrs ago and she is making it her lifes mission for me to pay it back.  After four years of pleading with her to provide proof she has now provided the proof.  I never denied the fact but thought when he died the debt had died with him. She is now withholding funds from me from a legal ownership of land (my fathers land), threatening me with court, depriving me of an income.  Making decisions that she shouldn't as she is not a Trustee (I am and so is surviving brother who lives abroad and isn't interested).  I now have a new solicitor who is as sharp as a tack but I cant afford him now until she pays me my rightful money.  She wants to buy other plots of land off me but for pennies and not pounds.  

She has ignored initial valuation of these plots of land and got her own which is 50% below the initial valuation.  She is sticking to the latter.  She is trying to morally blackmail me, and extort money for various trivialities that are best left well alone.  But she has made the decisions and now wants me (and brother) to pay for her 'indulgences'.

I am so upset by her latest effort to hurt and penalise me that Im finding it very hard to make any sense of it all.  Since my brother died five years ago she has lied, cheated, sold off some of his property (which is nothing to do with me) divided my very small family.  She has two children one of which is on a mental health spectrum and the other is a lost soul. She has got them to sign a document to say that she has their permission to make their decision's.  They are in they're early 30's and certainly not children as she likes to call them.  Offspring would be more appropriate.  The two offspring are a third beneficiary of the Trust as well as myself and brother.

So Im left with a disinterested brother, a mean mendacious sister-in-law and no hope or help.  Can anyone out there advise.  Please no nasty posts as Im not strong enough to cope with any further spite.

elsien

Pay back the loan, seems the obvious answer.
You don’t seem to be disputing that there was a loan, but you still insisted on your SIL getting proof. 

You may be thinking of debts owed by the deceased which can’t be enforced if there’s no money in the estate to pay them. Your situation is different to that because the loan is still outstanding to your brother’s estate.
What sort of sums are we talking about? 

She can’t hold you to ransom if there’s nothing outstanding to hold against you. 

If you have other plots of land you want to sell, then can you not sell them to someone else for a fair amount? 

elsien

ETA - while appreciating you are upset, it would help if you could try to stick more to the relevant facts.
How does your brother’s will fit in with the legal ownership of your father’s land being passed to you? Where do the adult children fit into this - are they beneficiaries of some of the land as well?  A bit of a timeline about who left what to who, and when, might help. 

comeandgo

You knew you had a loan but you hoped it would be ignored or written off, unfortunately this looks like it’s not going to happen.  You need to repay it, this is not your sister in law being mean and nasty, this is what is legally correct.

Keep_pedalling

Death does not right off money owed to the deceased it simply becomes a debt owed to his estate. Your SIL is not being greedy she is entitled to have this money back. It would be very different if it was a gift.

Pennylane

Honesty is always the best policy. Pay back the money.

Marcon

mrs-stressed said:

I have a sister in law who is holding me to ransom over a loan made to me by my recently deceased brother.  Loan was over 20yrs ago and she is making it her lifes mission for me to pay it back.  After four years of pleading with her to provide proof she has now provided the proof.  I never denied the fact but thought when he died the debt had died with him. She is now withholding funds from me from a legal ownership of land (my fathers land), threatening me with court, depriving me of an income.  Making decisions that she shouldn't as she is not a Trustee (I am and so is surviving brother who lives abroad and isn't interested).  I now have a new solicitor who is as sharp as a tack but I cant afford him now until she pays me my rightful money.  She wants to buy other plots of land off me but for pennies and not pounds.  

She has ignored initial valuation of these plots of land and got her own which is 50% below the initial valuation.  She is sticking to the latter.  She is trying to morally blackmail me, and extort money for various trivialities that are best left well alone.  But she has made the decisions and now wants me (and brother) to pay for her 'indulgences'.

I am so upset by her latest effort to hurt and penalise me that Im finding it very hard to make any sense of it all.  Since my brother died five years ago she has lied, cheated, sold off some of his property (which is nothing to do with me) divided my very small family.  She has two children one of which is on a mental health spectrum and the other is a lost soul. She has got them to sign a document to say that she has their permission to make their decision's.  They are in they're early 30's and certainly not children as she likes to call them.  Offspring would be more appropriate.  The two offspring are a third beneficiary of the Trust as well as myself and brother.

So Im left with a disinterested brother, a mean mendacious sister-in-law and no hope or help.  Can anyone out there advise.  Please no nasty posts as Im not strong enough to cope with any further spite.

Judging from your post in 2018 https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5887601/deed-of-variance/p1 this has been going on for years, starting at a time when your sister in law had just lost her husband - who according to that post was the sole beneficiary of his will. 

I wonder how she would describe the situation? You accept that you owe the money but have forced her to spend four years looking for documentary evidence; she is asking you to pay for what you describe as 'various trivialities that are best left well alone' - does she see them in that light?

I suspect your sister in law is as distressed by what she sees as your unreasonable behaviour as you are by hers. Any chance someone could mediate between the pair of you, which seems the most likely route to resolving this unhappy mess?

 

meeemee

Your poor sister in law has been grieving as well as trying to prove the loan that you already admit to owing, would it not of been easier to pay it back, even if you had to get a loan from elsewhere? When you say ‘debt died with him’ surely that’s when the person owing the money passes away without funds to clear it not this way round where he was the lender.

74jax

Why would you plead with her for 4 years to show you proof, when you knew it was true do didn't need proof?

Pay back the loan, surely its obvious. 

Spendless

I'm another who doesn't understand why you've insisted in proof from your sis-in-law about a debt you knew full well you owed.

A post on here would have clarified that the debt didn't die with your brother. There's enough knowledgeable people on here to tell you that and if you hadn't believed them you could have double checked it with a professional at that point.

Since it doesn't seem that you have the money upfront to pay sis-in-law back just from your comment about being unable to afford your current solicitor, then can't the amount be deducted from whatever it is sis-in-law owes you?   

Flugelhorn

pay back the loan with interest