Personal debt recovery.

redjem61

Hi everyone, my daughter has recently ended a relationship during which she naively lent her then partner some money, although it is only £500.00 she works as a nursery nurse so doesn't earn much more than the minimum wage and so she needs the money back. The former partner agreed to pay her back within a month of the relationship ending but has reneged on that verbal agreement and so I was wondering if there was anything she could do to get her money back, legally of course. Just as a further piece of information she applied Claires law and got information from the police that this person had done this sort of thing before if that makes any difference to her chances of getting the money back. Thank you for any help you can us with this matter. xx

DullGreyGuy

What evidence does she have that she loaned the money rather than gifted it?

Brie

It may well depend on how much time & effort she wants to put in to this.  It might be a case of going to small claims court if she can prove that it was a loan and not a gift.  But it will also depend on whether the ex has the means to pay it back.  It might be that she will need to simply try to move on. 

She does have my complete sympathy - I lent a bloke money years back and when I asked for it back he basically laughed at me and then left the country.  It's the sort of thing that does rather destroy one's faith in others.

tightauldgit

The question would be what evidence does she have of this loan and the expectation on former partner to repay? If they claim it was a gift then it's one person's word against another unless there's some agreement in place. 

I've also been caught out in the past loaning partners money and it should just be used as a learning experience - if you give people money then don't expect to get it back or at least do so with the knowledge that you might never get it back. 

Spendless

Hi, my daughter's friend did exactly the same thing with the same amount of money and also wasn't in a position to just think 'oh well' As she didn't want her parents to find out we said we'd look into how to support her. The ex boyf in this case runs a pub (as manager) so we suspected he wouldn't want any hassle. We went as far as looking up the small claims court and there was evidence in a text he's sent acknowledging he owed her the money. However daughter's friend didn't wish to persue it, so it got left.

Is there any written evidence in texts/emails that she lent this money? You've also mentioned Claire's law is there any evidence there she could use?

Have a look here to see if  she can or if it's worth it

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/make-claim

redjem61

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions, the police officer she spoke with was very supportive so I will tell her to contact her again to see if there is anything she could suggest. She does have texts mostly very hateful and abusive mentioning the fact that he is aware he owes her the money so the small claims court could be an option.

tightauldgit

redjem61 said:

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions, the police officer she spoke with was very supportive so I will tell her to contact her again to see if there is anything she could suggest. She does have texts mostly very hateful and abusive mentioning the fact that he is aware he owes her the money so the small claims court could be an option.

If he has admitted in writing that he owes the money then that could well be helpful. Certainly probably worth an email or whatever to say 'look I've got these texts where you admit you owe the money so pay within 2 weeks or I'll submit a court claim' and see if that scares them a bit. 

 I don't think the Clare's Law stuff would necessarily be relevant since any case should be decided on its own merits not based on whatever might have happened or not in the past.