IOU between father and daughter? Is it legal?

[arclord]

Background
My wife was forced to sign an IOU to her father for her university fees education during an quarrel years ago. Today, the relationship turns sour and her father is using the IOU against my wife.

The IOU was a handwritten note between my wife and her father. The note states a principal amount and amount subjected to bank interest rate with no payment date stated. My wife was forced to sign on it.

My wife had been providing the family a sum of money every month for around 8 years.

Questions
Q1) Can my wife's father used this IOU to demand payment from my wife?

Q2) Will the interest rate kicks in since there is no defined payment date?

Q3) Can the amount of money that my wife provide to the family be used to offset the IOU?

People don't understand what they're saying when they say someone was "forced" to sign something. Was she being restrained and tortured? Was a gun held to her head and was her life threatened? That is forcing.

Her father likely threatened that she would not go to college unless she signed a promissory note. She signed it of her on volition. Nobody "forced" her to sign it.

The note may still hold up in court but her father would have to be quite a curmudgeon to take his daughter to court over it. It sounds like there were no clear ground rules set out in the agreement, and it's unlikely he'll be able to have enforced by a court, interest. He may be able to get a judgment in the original amount in his favor.

[arclord]

Originally Posted by Unregistered People don't understand what they're saying when they say someone was "forced" to sign something. Was she being restrained and tortured? Was a gun held to her head and was her life threatened? That is forcing. Her father likely threatened that she would not go to college unless she signed a promissory note. She signed it of her on volition. Nobody "forced" her to sign it. The note may still hold up in court but her father would have to be quite a curmudgeon to take his daughter to court over it. It sounds like there were no clear ground rules set out in the agreement, and it's unlikely he'll be able to have enforced by a court, interest. He may be able to get a judgment in the original amount in his favor.

I agreed that "forced" was a wrong word to use. "pressurized" probably a better word to describe the situation. Actually the note was written when she came out of college. She was "pressurized" to sign the note due to immense pressure and scolding from her father.

[annjd]

The lack of a payment date will help--hard to enforce any actual date in that case...

She still signed it. Now she has to pay for it. If she did not want to agree to his terms, she should not have signed the note.

The date doesn't really matter. She signed the note, and if he chooses to take her to court, he will likely get some sort of judgment.