Family Loan Dispute

[chris1975z]

Dear All
My parents provided my wife and I a £40,000 loan towards a deposit on our house a few years ago. We all signed into a trust deed whereby they could register their interest in the property in the event of a sale.
I'm sure I'm not the only one to have got into family disputes but needless to state the relationship with my parents has completely broken down. In the last few weeks we received a letter from their solicitors which required the land registry forms to be signed. We duly completed this in accordance with the terms of the trust deed. Since then we received an email from my parents threatening "further action" against us if we don't repay the £40,000. There is no loan agreement in place but I have paid interest each month at a rate of 3.5% as agreed from the outset verbally. It should be noted (and we would swear under oath to the same) that in my parents words "you'll get it when we die so you might as well have it now" was the basis on which the loan was offered.
I have replied to their threatening email simply referring them to the terms of the Trust Deed which they have now executed and therefore this concludes the matter. We don't have 40k to pay them back and can't release equity as the mortgage (fixed) was based on a 25% deposit so they will not release funds.
Anyone's thoughts on the above would be sincerely appreciated.

[winner12]

Re: Family Loan Dispute

Hi there
Its a tricky situation to be in my sister in law lent us some money to help us out with our debts we paid her £3000 back which she said at the time was towards the loan we were living with her then.
When we moved on she then said the money was for rent and we still owed the original balance she hounded us for 2 years caused hell for me and my OH who was hell bent on paying her back we have done this now and I have not spoken to her in over a year.
I suppose its the route they chose to hound you via email too has you have said you dont have the money they cant force you to sell but if your wife is on your side what can they do
My OH sister knew she could turn the screw between us at the time but she is now the looser I feel we still have debts but are working hard to pay them off and she no longer has a hold over us thank god so good luck

[chris1975z]

Re: Family Loan Dispute

Thanks for the above. My main concern was that they could attempt to force the sale of the house due to their beneficial interest in the property in the form the Trust Deed. Nowhere in the trust deed does it state they can do that though. It simply states they get their equity back if we sell the property which is absolutely fine with us. I'm not looking to take the money away from them - we simply don't have 40k to give them though. My wife is firmly behind me (as are my in-laws) as they were abusive towards her too. I guess my main concern is understanding our exact legal stand point as other have suggested that they can try and force the sale (although this is described as expensive and apparantly a judge does not view making people homeless as a good resolution!).

[winner12]

Re: Family Loan Dispute

Thanks for the above. My main concern was that they could attempt to force the sale of the house due to their beneficial interest in the property in the form the Trust Deed. Nowhere in the trust deed does it state they can do that though. It simply states they get their equity back if we sell the property which is absolutely fine with us. I'm not looking to take the money away from them - we simply don't have 40k to give them though. My wife is firmly behind me (as are my in-laws) as they were abusive towards her too. I guess my main concern is understanding our exact legal stand point as other have suggested that they can try and force the sale (although this is described as expensive and apparantly a judge does not view making people homeless as a good resolution!).

May be it would be viewed the same as a creditor trying to make you homeless have you got children its always amazes me how much worse family debt can be sometimes I have found most of my creditors easier to deal with than my sister in law but if the rest of your family are with you its half the battle I am sure someone with more legal knowledge will be along to help but just wanted to offer my support and also in this property market would they get all their money back if they could force a sale the first charge surely would be the bank who you got the mortgage through the house could be in negative equity

[Nikolai]

Re: Family Loan Dispute

See my comments on your other post on this subject. If you tell me the title of the Land Registry forms I can make more sense of it for you.