I ( 27 M ) am working in London now and my parents and sisters are in Chennai and have been paying my father's 30,000 INR rent and EMI every month for the past 5 years plus house expenses.
Back in 2019, he took a 34 lakh INR loan from a private lender in Chennai for a building construction project, giving blank cheques as security. The project stalled, but he has already sunk around 40 lakhs into it. Now, in 2026, the lender has deposited those old cheques, bounced them, and sent a legal notice claiming an absurd 2.42 Crore INR debt with 24% compound interest. My dad has less than 15 days to reply to the immediate legal demand, or he faces a criminal case and potential arrest.
Despite being 64 and struggling with his health, my dad is incredibly egoistic and refuses to hire a lawyer or listen to reason. Instead, his plan is to take 85 lakhs lakhs in advance home loans from new apartment buyers to finish the building. He expects to bring in 1.5 crores total, which theoretically leaves a profit of about 25 lakhs. The huge problem is that he plans to build using this "rotational" money. If the lender uses the pending legal case to freeze his bank accounts, the new buyer funds will be trapped, construction stops, and those buyers will definitely file criminal fraud and cheating charges against him.
Whenever I try to explain this massive risk, he refuses to listen and just tells me, "don't talk negatively." When I confronted him about the legal notice recently, he aggressively snapped, "unkita yaruketa ? Nee onnum veetu selavuku kaasu anupa venam. vaida phone ah. yedho konjam paatha overa poitu iruka" and hung up on me. He drops calls often without even listening to what I have to say. My mom and sister are still attached to him and won't leave, and I feel entirely helpless watching this disaster unfold from miles away.
The guilt and stress of staying in London are eating me alive. How do I handle this guilt. IDK really :(