How to deal with your deadbeat family member?
Would like some advice. It's a bit long story. Thanks for your patience to read it through.
My father-in-law (live in another country) is a deadbeat who lived on his family inheritance for a long time, until in 2008 he re-mortgaged the only house he has (inherited from his parents, prime location) and invested a bit below 1 million in USD in the stock and FX market, and he lost 80% due to the most shares he bought went bankrupt and he played FX on margin. He has been in debt since then. And worst of all he's been paying off his debt through credit card loans with ~30% interest rate and he's paying off the minimum payment (increases hugely every month) so he won't be called loan or forced to get into bankrupt.
I don't know where he got the luck but he also gets inheritance in stages (his very rich parents split their huge inheritance into chunks and drew up a will that he would be able to get portions of money in different age points. He got his last shares 5 years ago and able to pay off a bit debt and still paying off min. pay from credit card debt. Everyone in the family is concerned (esp. mother-in-law, she got eviction letter from the bank to take the house but then father-in-law managed to pay off a bit through his last batch of inheritance). But father-in-law refused to talk about it and pretended life was as usual.
My wife has been giving them a bit money as soon as she works just to "support" them, she gave around 1/5 of her salary. But after we immigrated to Canada my wife has been earning a lot less take-home pay and she's currently pregnant (will not work after she delivers, as we don't have any family here to take care of our baby), she only occasionally sends some money home and has recently stopped sending after she knew she's pregnant.
Now here is the problem. In our country there's a law that requires children to take care of their parents (Yes I know!!). It is deemed as illegal if children don't provide to cover their parents basic needs - kinda like an alimony sort of arrangement, the court will judge based on circumstance and set a required amount and children cannot avoid the responsibility.
As a deadbeat, my father-in-law is calling my wife and "begging" for money on a constant basis, loads of lecturing and sobbing talk and self-victimization. My wife knows his game but at the same time he is family and she is afraid she may get sued. At this stage we don't think she will get sued as there's been no threat. But you never know what a desperate person will do to a family.
This post is mainly for my complaint but would like to hear any constructive advice. I am in a difficult situation as I don't want to get into my wife's family affair but sad to see she's stressed out on her pregnancy, her current employment, her family issue etc.
My father-in-law (live in another country) is a deadbeat who lived on his family inheritance for a long time, until in 2008 he re-mortgaged the only house he has (inherited from his parents, prime location) and invested a bit below 1 million in USD in the stock and FX market, and he lost 80% due to the most shares he bought went bankrupt and he played FX on margin. He has been in debt since then. And worst of all he's been paying off his debt through credit card loans with ~30% interest rate and he's paying off the minimum payment (increases hugely every month) so he won't be called loan or forced to get into bankrupt.
I don't know where he got the luck but he also gets inheritance in stages (his very rich parents split their huge inheritance into chunks and drew up a will that he would be able to get portions of money in different age points. He got his last shares 5 years ago and able to pay off a bit debt and still paying off min. pay from credit card debt. Everyone in the family is concerned (esp. mother-in-law, she got eviction letter from the bank to take the house but then father-in-law managed to pay off a bit through his last batch of inheritance). But father-in-law refused to talk about it and pretended life was as usual.
My wife has been giving them a bit money as soon as she works just to "support" them, she gave around 1/5 of her salary. But after we immigrated to Canada my wife has been earning a lot less take-home pay and she's currently pregnant (will not work after she delivers, as we don't have any family here to take care of our baby), she only occasionally sends some money home and has recently stopped sending after she knew she's pregnant.
Now here is the problem. In our country there's a law that requires children to take care of their parents (Yes I know!!). It is deemed as illegal if children don't provide to cover their parents basic needs - kinda like an alimony sort of arrangement, the court will judge based on circumstance and set a required amount and children cannot avoid the responsibility.
As a deadbeat, my father-in-law is calling my wife and "begging" for money on a constant basis, loads of lecturing and sobbing talk and self-victimization. My wife knows his game but at the same time he is family and she is afraid she may get sued. At this stage we don't think she will get sued as there's been no threat. But you never know what a desperate person will do to a family.
This post is mainly for my complaint but would like to hear any constructive advice. I am in a difficult situation as I don't want to get into my wife's family affair but sad to see she's stressed out on her pregnancy, her current employment, her family issue etc.
