Lending money to friends & family

boss-man-uk · 29 September 2005 at 7:53PM

Tee-Bhoy wrote:

Hampshirebabe,if you phone the council and speak to the housing officer they would be interested to know if the house was being is sub-let.

That could be construed as grassing and sour grapes really on the part of the op.

LOL

boss

8pnoodles · 13 October 2005 at 1:00PM

I had an ex boyfriend steal (yes STEAL) not borrow £850 off me. He knew my PIN and stole my bank card off me just before I got paid. He even helped me "look for it"!

Then he said he'd "lend" me some money. Went out and came back with £50. Checking my bank statements much later it turned out he'd withdrawn money to lend me, from my own bank account!

The day I got paid he wiped out my bank account and disappeared. I maaged to get him taken to court (which took an AWFUL lot of me chasing the police andhassling them) and he was ordered to pay back £595. But he stole £850!

He was paying it back in £100 monthly installments. After a couple of months the payments stopped.

I phoned the courts and they said he'd disappeared again. They said if he didn't turn up in I think it was 1 year, possibly 2, then he wouldn't have to pay me anything.

Err... what?

Anyway luckily he didn't seem to realise this ebcause he tured up again and I got the rest of my installments.

The moral of the story (for those who don't have any)?

You may as well borrow and steal money off people. They don't really stand a hope in hell of ever getting it back, certainly not all of it!

moneygoesround · 1 November 2005 at 12:51AM

This may sound familiar but it has a twist.
I recently lent money to a friend to pay off a tax bill, nothing in writing, oh mug I hear you say!
However it has a twist, as I am still in contact, know the address,
and have a copy of the cheque, paying in slip, and a receipt from the bank where the money was paid into.

The twist is they have suppose to have had a serious illness, sad you say, but the twist is when they were suppose to be in hospital they were abroad. Also they are supposed to be staying at the family home, but they are not, they are in their flat. I have recorded messages asking questions I know the answers to, in order to see what they say and to date it has been a complete shame with what they are telling me. I have not let on that I know what is going on as do not want them to slip away.

However how do I go about getting my money back if they decide not to pay?

They are self-employed and I could do great damage to their future chances of achieving new work if so desired.

Could this be counted as deception, with all the deceit that is going on?

Would it be a criminal offence of some kind? I would rather be able to get my money back but failing that at least having them prosecuted would be the next best thing.

Does anyone have any ideas?
Would be grateful for any advice. Many thanks!

Rafter · 1 November 2005 at 1:17PM

Some friends.

Demand your money within 7 days and then go to the police, although the lack of any paperwork means they can just claim the money was a gift though and you may not get anywhere.

If they are committing fraud and you have proof you could maybe blackmail them but is that really a route you want to go down?

Could you agree a payment plan with them? get them to sign a standing order mandate or something at least acknowledging the loan. At least then if they do stop paying you there is proof of a loan arrangement and you have something to take to the police?

R.

Robert_Sterling_3 · 1 November 2005 at 1:56PM

It looks as if you can prove you gave your friend some money.
It looks as if you can not prove it is a loan.
I do not think the police could help in this siuation.
As it is a friend and you know where the friend lives you could pop round and see the friend and have a bit of a chat about the debt.

Avogirly · 1 November 2005 at 1:56PM

I have no advice for you, just want to wish you loads of luck. xXx

Stonk · 1 November 2005 at 2:03PM

Well, it sounds like you've given up on keeping the "friendship", so ...

One way of getting back money with a good convenience-to-forcefulness ratio is to threaten the small claims court, or better still, register your case with its online equivalent "MoneyClaim OnLine" at https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk.

Depends on how strong you think your evidence is. Even if the debt is not provable in court, though, you would hope that on receiving official court papers the ex-friend would cave in and give back the money.

HGLTsuperstar · 1 November 2005 at 2:54PM

Just to say your recorded messages would not stand up as evidence in court, but your "friend" may not know this!

file_wizzard · 1 November 2005 at 5:05PM

Stonk wrote:

Depends on how strong you think your evidence is. Even if the debt is not provable in court, though, you would hope that on receiving official court papers the ex-friend would cave in and give back the money.

It is actually easier than perhaps you think, a county court claim would be Judged on the "balance of probability " and in this case there seems to be no dispute by the debtor that the debt exists

Even if they did change their story to claim that no money was owed, or that it wasnt a loan, would they stand in court and commit perjury and claim contrary to the above?....probably not considering that perjury is generaly punishable by a custodial sentence.

the best course of action is to issue an online claim as has been previously suggested, this will give the debtor 3 options

1) Settle in full out of court
2) go to court, a CCJ will be issued and they pay in full
3) go to court a CCJ will be issued and they will repay the sum over a period of time appropriate to their financial means

file_wizzard · 1 November 2005 at 5:10PM

Rafter wrote:

Some friends.

Demand your money within 7 days and then go to the police, although the lack of any paperwork means they can just claim the money was a gift though and you may not get anywhere.

The police would have no interest whatsoever, this is a Civil matter.

Lending money to friends & family

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