Loan or not a Loan??

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stepdad

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My Wifes Ex-Mother in law gave me some $ many years ago (6+). The Money helped her obtain an apartment for herself and child. Without a larger deposit, first and last months rent, She would have never gotten into the apartment, because of a ruined credit history because the X left her with all the Bills.

She has never been asked to repay this money, and never known it to be a loan.

Questions

1) Can the Ex-Mother in-law give these loan repayment rights to her son(ex-husband), and have her son come after me for this money?? My thoughts are no.

2) What is the statu of limitation on a loan case in small claims court?
 
I find that by default, most circumstances involving giving someone else money are presumed to be a loan. However, the circumstances could easily change the presumption, e.g. father to son on a birthday, etc.

In this situation, I have no idea who you are in relation to the person who gave you money since what you wrote is inconsistent. I'll assume it's your ex-mother-in-law. It would seem likely that the money given to you was a gift through your ex-wife. It has also been forever since they asked for the money and long after the two of you were separated and divorced. However, I don't know all the facts of the case and another judge may see this differently.

If qualified as a loan, there would be some terms of repayment discussed if it were a loan (e.g., when you get enough money to pay me back.) If so, that person can sue you in small claims but they would need to prove their case that it was a loan. It would seem somewhat difficult to come into court and claim this now, after all this time. I would identify the circumstances regarding the "terms" of the loan. The more you can show that there were no terms the less likely there was ever a loan and it was a gift to you two to help you out during a difficult time.

Additionally, at most you should be liable for one half the amount of the loan.

Note, the statute of limitations deals with the amount of time that you can bring an action, e.g. breach of contract, default on loan, etc. and it does not deal with the amount of time you get to pay back a loan.
 
Clarifications

Thanks for your response.

I realize I messed up in my post. My relation to the wife, is I am her current husband. I was not the receiver of this money, nor was I even in the picture at the time.

This was a gift from the Ex-Mother in-law to my wife way back when. Now there is a child support issue at hand, and the Ex-husband is claiming that he does not owe the $, because he has canceled checks his mother provided him. Most of these checks date way back to the marriage. Only 1 check was written after divorce proceeding started, and this one was used to secure an apartment.

There were terms mentioned about this $. My wife says she was told by the Ex-Mother in-law (6+ yrs ago) that replayment was not an issue, that she was going to make her son (ex-husband) pay her this amount (she was pissed at him at that time).
 
So it's the mother in law talking about coming after your wife after 6 years.... chance of success seem unlikely. I wonder if she'll even go through the trouble. If it was a large amount of money the variables might change somewhat.
 
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