Limitation period?

catkins

A friend of mine has asked for advice and I said I would post on here as I am always amazed how much you know and how helpful you all are. Anyway after the grovel this is the story:

In June 1999 she gave quite a substantial sum of money to an acquintance (she's too embarassed to tell me how much but I am guessing at least £5,000) to buy a share of a house abroad. The house was to be kept for a year or so, sold and then the profit split. There as never anything in writing. So this person disappears abroad with the money never to be seen again until last week when another friend says they "spotted this person locally".

What my friend wants to know is if she can find the acquintance can she try and get her money back or does the 6 year limitation apply? She has been to the police and they are not interested, saying it is not a criminal matter.

Any ideas please?

whitewitch_2

Hi
was at solicitors yesterday for much the same thing and he told me 3 years limit from date of lend/transaction/whatever!

so unfortunately doesn't look too promising

good luck, try appealing to their conscience, morality etc
Hasn't worked for me but you never know. . . .

file_wizzard

catkins wrote:

A friend of mine has asked for advice and I said I would post on here as I am always amazed how much you know and how helpful you all are. Anyway after the grovel this is the story:

In June 1999 she gave quite a substantial sum of money to an acquintance (she's too embarassed to tell me how much but I am guessing at least £5,000) to buy a share of a house abroad. The house was to be kept for a year or so, sold and then the profit split. There as never anything in writing. So this person disappears abroad with the money never to be seen again until last week when another friend says they "spotted this person locally".

What my friend wants to know is if she can find the acquintance can she try and get her money back or does the 6 year limitation apply? She has been to the police and they are not interested, saying it is not a criminal matter.

Any ideas please?

The answer here is two fold, if the money was lent in good faith and the other party had fully intended to repay it then it is purely a civil matter, and your friend would only need to prove that on the balance of probability that the load was made, and that an amount is still outstanding.

in order to to do this your friend would obviously have to issue a money claim through the courts service and the other party / debtor would have to attend and make statement that the transaction was either not undertaken as a loan or that they had repaid it all.

This is something they would have to make a decision on whether they would tell the truth or lie and risk commit perjury.

Secondly if the money was lent in good faith but the other party intentional avoided any payment to your friend then this is theft / fraud and could become criminal matter.

The important this to remember in both cases is that the presence of a paper document is not essential to bring recovery proceedings

perhaps if you give some further details it may become clearer as to her options.

with regards to the 3 year time outs and the 6 years within the limitaion act then yes this could well be an issue, depends on the eact date of the loan ( if this is known)