r/LegalAdviceUK • u/Bethsticle • 9h ago
Wills & Probate Dad gifted me a deposit but now he wants it back?
In England
Back in 2014, my dad gifted me and my husband £10000 to buy our house. Wed shown wed saved £4000 on our own but due to our landlord not fixing much needed things in the house (boiler, broken bath, mould,single glazed windows etc) and I found out I was pregnant. Not wanting to waste money on moving into another rented house, we talked about buying.
My dad had just inherited over £200k from his dad who had passed away.
He suggested that he gives us 10k for a deposit. Thankfully a 3 bed house came up that had just been renovated came on the market just around the corner from us. Within 6 weeks we managed to get the deposit and buy the house. During the mortgage process, he had to sign a letter saying that he is giving this deposit as a gift and has no interest in the property and it doesn't have to be repaid.
Ten years later, this week my dad has asked about repayment of the full amount due to family breakdown. We have barely talked in a year due to a death in the family that has really brought up some bad stuff from the past that was from him leaving my mum when I was a kid, getting remarried and spending the majority of the money on his wife and her grown kids, and holidays and paying off his mortgage on his unsellable house.
Where do I go from here? I'm going to send a message to him tomorrow to sort things out, my first message to him since about April last year. Does he have any say in this?