So a few years ago my grandfather gave me a personal rent free loan to help me out of some financial trouble. We agreed verbally that I would pay back the amount (in chunks) after a few years, and I would help him with selling some of his antiques and around the house and such. Which I did do. I'm glad that that allowed me to spend more time with him in his final years and get to know him better. A year before he passed I asked how he wanted me to pay back the first portion of the loan, but he said to hold onto it for now. And it didn't come up again because of his health problems and my new job. Then he passed away.
The family is busy arranging all the financial matters and selling two houses, and I'm still selling the antiques and the money goes to the family. As for the loan, it was an agreement between us and noone else knew about it. I also didn't tell anyone of the family as I am quite ashamed of the financial mess I put myself in. And we didn't discuss what would happen with regards to the loan in the event of his death.
Now over the years I've been agressively paying off my debt which was made a lot easier by that personal loan. And now I don't really know what to do about it. Some people seem to think a verbal and personal loan expires upon the lenders' death, (which, dispite mixed feelings, would be great for me) but I've been wondering if I now should perhaps owe the money to his children (my aunts and uncles) instead. But that would also include me telling them about my financial situation, which I would rather not do.
I would be interested in seeing what most people here think I should do. This is a tough one for me.
UPDATE Thanks for the valubale advice guys. The extra perspectives really helped. And dispite the temptation to just let it go since it was an agreement between my grandfather and myself, and really noone elses business, it just didn't sit right with me. And after thinking about the comments here I ended up calling my uncle who's taking charge of all the financial stuff and explained the situation. He sounded understanding and is coming over this week for some other stuff so we'll discuss it further in depth. And he agreed to be discreet about it. Feels like I made the right choice. I would just feel like I was stealing from the family by not telling them and perhaps risk the relationships if someone eventually found out. Although I'll probably regret it later haha. But I'll probably still get a bit of an inheritance so that'll compensate. I'm just glad my grandfather helped me out of that rough patch, and now that I'm in a somewhat better spot, I'll see what happens. Thanks a lot! I really appreciate it. This was a tough one :-)
Submitted July 23, 2017 at 02:32PM by SilverHoard http://ift.tt/2vNRvw9
