What do you think

We did the same with my DS first house. His partner kept everything, but we walked away from the money as there were GC and we felt it the home was for them. It was a substantial loss for us. What we did not know at the time was that she had found someone new. Not just her and the children, but a complete stranger benefited. Lesson learned, we helped him buy a new property and took a second charge over it rather than declare it as a gift.

I am in a similar situation. Dd & husband have split & a considerable amount of my money was lent for their deposit. However, although it caused a huge family row I insisted that they both signed a legal document saying that the money should be returned to me when the house was sold. My dd is hugely grateful that I did, as her ex cannot benefit from what is essentially my pension. Moral: Insist on legal agreement, signed & witnessed. Verbal agreements are not worth the paper they're not written on!!

Morally you should get it back.
But legally, you did sign the contract to say it was a gift not a loan.

I agree with your hsuabnd, Karma is a wonderful thing.

Next time give it to your daughter or son as the case may be, then they can recover it without any doubts - as long as there is cash available.

Not much you can do now, write it down to experience and let it go as DH suggests.

CG I like your style in that you feel able to mention/discuss this loan with the offender with confidence of calm and no heat. Under those circumstances, I feel you should go with your instincts. I envy the control you seem to have. I felt unable to discuss this with my offender as I was under the control of such unbelievable disappointment and hurt that I wouldn't have managed as well as you. Good luck.

There is some confusion over the money in the first place being a 'loan' or a 'gift' - morally it seems clear the money should be repaid but people read different things into situations. I know you appreciate OP that in law there wouldn't be any justification to get the money back because a document was signed to state it was a gift.

They've had to sell the house but does the equity enable them each to buy another house - or afford to rent somewhere or is might there be some truth in the fact that the ex partner may need it to find somewhere to live?

A decision can be made right now to change how you feel about this and sometimes - like with my divorce that cost £16,000 in 2008 because he was such a horrible person - the cost is worth it to get rid of them!

We did the same but my son had a document drawn up saying that his partner had no right to the money if they split. In fact they are now married and selling and moving on.

If the split is acrimonious then it is possible the partner is using this as a way of hurting your child by making them feel guilty that you will not be repaid the money. If you are on speaking terms with the partner you could try explaining your point of view and hope for the best.

Morally they should repay you the deposit plus a pro rata share of any increase in value since they bought the house, but unfortunately you can do nothing. The hardest thing will be to let it go, on top of the sadness of the break up of the relationship. Perhaps the partner thinks they are owed the money as compensation for a wasted 10 years!

However, although you are morally right, the only way to get over it and not let it eat away at you and make you bitter and ill, is to put it down to being a mistake to learn from. If you can bring youself to politely tell the partner how you feel, good for you. PS Your husband sounds loke a saint!

If you can afford to "let it go" then fine, BUT do you have other children who might one day need the same support, think about it.

So difficult - it's likely this has to be signed over as a 'gift' for dear HMRC and morals don't count for much these days. It just shows how careful we have to be. I hope the ex can sleep well at night!

A gift is a gift so really it is not yours any more. They probably feel that it is theirs by right, unless you specified otherwise at the time. I would never give money away with strings attached. Once it's gone, its gone. If you wanted to keep control they you could have advised at the time and put notice with Land Registry. Your decision, but I think your DH is right and leave it.

As you signed up to it being a gift the couple may regard it as theirs and you gave up all your rights to have it returned.
It's hard to say whether it should be returned on "moral" grounds as one person's morality may be different to another's.
We've given engagement presents and when the engagement was broken off, some people returned the gift and others didn't.
The lesson is to add a condition that the gift is returned if the property is sold due to the recipients breaking up. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

You gave the money as a gift, and clearly you know that legally you have no entitlement to it now.

But DD's ex-partner's moral compass seems broken if he is wanting to snaffle half of it. Wouldn't have thought there is anything you can do about it except appeal to his better nature.

Doversole You're making a bit of an assumption there.
CG hasn't specified the sex of the partner or indeed her offspring.

quite right jane ainsworth - my mistake - sorry.

You and your AC have the moral high ground but isn't it always thus. I remember my DM sold her house to my DSibling at a reduced cost on (verbal) condition that when it was time to sell again my DM would retrieve some of the difference, if you follow!! However my DSibling decided to pass on the goodwill by selling it to a friend of theirs at the cheap rate.
My DM was pretty annoyed at the time.
Neither a borrower or a lender be.
Never do good at another's expense. Etc

I was in this situation once but without the piece of paper stating it was a gift. Personally I felt morally it should go back to the person who gifted to me but they were happy for me to keep it. If I gave anything to my kids, it would be on the understanding that they repaid the money on the sale of the house but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Well at least you still have a relationship with your child, which is the most important thing.

My daughter is semi-estranged from all of the family, after I refused to go through with a loan to buy a house with her boyfriend, as I thought he was controlling. It was money from my pension, which I had already got out in preparation, but he began to show a side to him which I hadn't seen before, also he didn't want a survey or searches carried out and was not at all keen on a Deed of Trust.

This has caused me so much heartache that sometimes I just wish I had lost the money, although it was never about the money, more about not wanting my daughter to be tied to an abusive partner.

I have a different view you legally gave the money as a gift if you were expecting to have the money returned then you should not have gifted it. For your own peace of mind chalk it up to experience and never give such a gift again you won't then be disappointed that others don't share your moral values with regard to money .

Everyone is calling this a gift. It really wasn't. The mortgage company forced you to sign a doc stating that it was a gift, for whatever advantage that gave to the mortgage company. You had no choice but to sign it the way it was written if you wanted to help your child, even though everyone in the room knew it really was a loan and was expected to be repaid down the road. Since this "gift" thing seems to be standard procedure for mortgage companies in your area, I am wondering if it's possible to take the ex to court if you can produce witnesses that this was truly a loan. I'd talk with an attorney. Most will give you a free, initial session so they can appraise the situation to see if it's worth their time to take on your case. Next time, if possible, cross out the word "gift" and write in "loan" and initial the change. They say Justice is blind, but in your case she appears to be deaf and just plain wrong, too.

Morality plays little part in today's society.
You signed the mortgage papers saying it was a gift. Was that morally right, if indeed it was, in your eyes, borrowed money?
You can't cherry pick morality to suit. It's black or white, not 5O shades of grey.

Marilii

I suggest that the OP wasn't 'forced' to sign anything. She chose to sign, knowing full well the Ts &Cs.
The mortgage company (and the underwriters) would view borrowed money as a debt and that would colour their decision when it came to offering a mortgage which, in all probability, would not have been on the table.

I never lend money or underwrite anything, for anyone. It leads to 90% and only 10% of the time.

We are in this position. On separation it was agreed by son and Ddil that they would refund deposit to us but once their home sold she took her half of the equity and told our son she was not repaying us. It was a slap in the face. What goes around, comes around. I hope she feels good about her behaviour.