It's a long story so I will try and keep it simple.
I live with my long term girlfriend. In February of this year I had an affair with a neighbour. She was unemployed but had just been offered a job which required her to have a car to make deliveries and get her child to a childminder. Unfortunately her current car had broken down and was thought to be unrepairable (without throwing crazy money at it)..
She had just been left by the father of her child (who she claimed was not paying her maintenance for the child - which I later discovered to be a lie), had only just registered for benefits, had been unemployed for years (he paid for everything) so could not obtain credit. In short she was desperate.
A mutual friend of ours (another neighbour) had a car for sale and she asked me to loan her the money so she could purchase the car and accept the job. She said her employment would enable her to repay me. The seller of the car is witness to this.
Given the circumstances (the affair) it did not seem appropriate to get anything in writing as I thought she seemed genuine and I regarded myself as a good judge of character. I transfered the money direct from my account to hers, no cash was given.
The affair was discovered in June when my girlfriend found text messages on my phone. We agreed to stay together thus ending the affair.
Upon hearing this I received many abusive messages from the other woman and after giving her a few days to calm down I inquired as to when she intended to begin repaying the loan. Her reply was not pleasant and made it clear she now had no intention of repaying me.
At this time I was also told that she owed hundreds to the childminder and was refusing to pay, even though there is a signed contract and she had been claiming tax credits to pay 100% of the child care fees (fraud?).
Naturally if she wasn't paying the childminder when there is a signed contract I thought there was no way she was ever going to pay me, no matter how much we discussed it.
I posted a very reasonable and polite letter through her door outlining how much she owed me and for what and offered her the chance to pay the money in installments.. at a rate of whatever she could afford. The last line warned her that if we could not come to an agreement I would be forced to seek legal advice.
It was no shock that she ignored the letter so I began small claims proceedings.
I have now seen her defence and her statement. She scribbled a few lines saying that the money was a gift and that she ended the relationship in May. Also adding in that I had been sending her nasty and harrassing notes, all of which is not true.
She says in her defence "I had assumed the money was a gift when our relationship was good", but in her statement she quotes me as saying I told her she didn't have to repay me. She did not mention this in her initial defence.
The truth is I repeatedly told her "there is no rush to repay me".. but she seems to have interpreted this as something else.
What is the probability of someone giving someone they are seeing 'on the side' half a months salary after knowing them for 2 weeks?.. because that is what she is claiming happened. I guess it does happen somewhere but it must be seen as unlikely surely?
She has provided no evidence to support her claim except for a couple of paragraphs of her own lies which looks like she literally took 5 minutes to write it.
Her defence also differs from her statement in that now she only received one letter from me, not many (I questioned it in my statement as she had claimed I sent many nasty and distressing letters)... also on the same subject, after 7 weeks of no contact with her she started sending me texts out of the blue telling me to stop knocking on her door and that I should drop this rubbish.. as I had not been near her house and worried that she might falsely try and involve the police to back up her claim I telephoned the police myself and they told her to stop harrassing me.
I submitted to the court:
My statement
A copy of the letter I posted through her door asking to come to an agreement.
A statement from the seller of the car saying that he knew she was borrowing the money from me and that she had told him she was going to repay me.
A statement from the childminder saying that she too is pursuing small claims action against the defendant for the non payment and that the defendant had told her she had to borrow the money for the car and therefore didn't have any money to pay the child minding fees. (I was concerned about including this statement as it might be seen as mud slinging.. but I felt it very relevant to my case as it is evidence of her inclination to ignore debts, even if under a contract)
A statement from my girlfriend saying that she knew the money for the car had been borrowed, but she did not know it was me who had loaned the money. She had become good friends with the defendant during the course of the affair so the defendant told her everything (maybe seen as a biased witness?)
A letter from the bank showing the direct money transfer from my account to hers.
There is no written agreement but I have 4 statements from tax paying individuals and proof of the money transfer against the lone word of a benefit fraudster.. does anyone think I have a chance of being awarded judgement (getting the money is another matter!)
I have certainly learned some lessons this year!
I live with my long term girlfriend. In February of this year I had an affair with a neighbour. She was unemployed but had just been offered a job which required her to have a car to make deliveries and get her child to a childminder. Unfortunately her current car had broken down and was thought to be unrepairable (without throwing crazy money at it)..
She had just been left by the father of her child (who she claimed was not paying her maintenance for the child - which I later discovered to be a lie), had only just registered for benefits, had been unemployed for years (he paid for everything) so could not obtain credit. In short she was desperate.
A mutual friend of ours (another neighbour) had a car for sale and she asked me to loan her the money so she could purchase the car and accept the job. She said her employment would enable her to repay me. The seller of the car is witness to this.
Given the circumstances (the affair) it did not seem appropriate to get anything in writing as I thought she seemed genuine and I regarded myself as a good judge of character. I transfered the money direct from my account to hers, no cash was given.
The affair was discovered in June when my girlfriend found text messages on my phone. We agreed to stay together thus ending the affair.
Upon hearing this I received many abusive messages from the other woman and after giving her a few days to calm down I inquired as to when she intended to begin repaying the loan. Her reply was not pleasant and made it clear she now had no intention of repaying me.
At this time I was also told that she owed hundreds to the childminder and was refusing to pay, even though there is a signed contract and she had been claiming tax credits to pay 100% of the child care fees (fraud?).
Naturally if she wasn't paying the childminder when there is a signed contract I thought there was no way she was ever going to pay me, no matter how much we discussed it.
I posted a very reasonable and polite letter through her door outlining how much she owed me and for what and offered her the chance to pay the money in installments.. at a rate of whatever she could afford. The last line warned her that if we could not come to an agreement I would be forced to seek legal advice.
It was no shock that she ignored the letter so I began small claims proceedings.
I have now seen her defence and her statement. She scribbled a few lines saying that the money was a gift and that she ended the relationship in May. Also adding in that I had been sending her nasty and harrassing notes, all of which is not true.
She says in her defence "I had assumed the money was a gift when our relationship was good", but in her statement she quotes me as saying I told her she didn't have to repay me. She did not mention this in her initial defence.
The truth is I repeatedly told her "there is no rush to repay me".. but she seems to have interpreted this as something else.
What is the probability of someone giving someone they are seeing 'on the side' half a months salary after knowing them for 2 weeks?.. because that is what she is claiming happened. I guess it does happen somewhere but it must be seen as unlikely surely?
She has provided no evidence to support her claim except for a couple of paragraphs of her own lies which looks like she literally took 5 minutes to write it.
Her defence also differs from her statement in that now she only received one letter from me, not many (I questioned it in my statement as she had claimed I sent many nasty and distressing letters)... also on the same subject, after 7 weeks of no contact with her she started sending me texts out of the blue telling me to stop knocking on her door and that I should drop this rubbish.. as I had not been near her house and worried that she might falsely try and involve the police to back up her claim I telephoned the police myself and they told her to stop harrassing me.
I submitted to the court:
My statement
A copy of the letter I posted through her door asking to come to an agreement.
A statement from the seller of the car saying that he knew she was borrowing the money from me and that she had told him she was going to repay me.
A statement from the childminder saying that she too is pursuing small claims action against the defendant for the non payment and that the defendant had told her she had to borrow the money for the car and therefore didn't have any money to pay the child minding fees. (I was concerned about including this statement as it might be seen as mud slinging.. but I felt it very relevant to my case as it is evidence of her inclination to ignore debts, even if under a contract)
A statement from my girlfriend saying that she knew the money for the car had been borrowed, but she did not know it was me who had loaned the money. She had become good friends with the defendant during the course of the affair so the defendant told her everything (maybe seen as a biased witness?)
A letter from the bank showing the direct money transfer from my account to hers.
There is no written agreement but I have 4 statements from tax paying individuals and proof of the money transfer against the lone word of a benefit fraudster.. does anyone think I have a chance of being awarded judgement (getting the money is another matter!)
I have certainly learned some lessons this year!
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