Covering my arse on a loan

My father always said "You can't get blood out of a turnip"

(He was from Missouri )

Danny boy, stop fantasizing and just write this one off as tuition in the school of life.

 

To me, with a little work, it sounds like you could come out on the upside on this one (maybe). There are lots of ways to work this out.... just be objective, and don't get your shorts into a tighter knot about the "principle" of it all.... what's happend has happened. So what. Now what?

You say the car is worth about 2.5K over what you paid... so you're on the right end of the math there. I would say that you should be nice to her, and get her to make a couple-few payments... this (according to a previous poster) establishes that there was an understanding that this was a loan. After that happens, you have some legal ammo in your pocket, should you need it in the future.

Also, from here on out, do most or all of your important correspondence in writing. More legal ammo there, should you need it.

Maybe as part of the "re-negotiation" of the terms, you can introduce a written agreement: i.e. "OK... I'll allow you to lower your payment if you sign this contract / agreement here." Still more legal ammo.

If you do decide to take this to small claims, you will have at least built up SOME form of written proof in your favor. By the way, date every piece of correspondence, to establish a timeline for the courts.

If she continues to miss payments, see if you can get her to sign the title of the car over to you... (be nice here, and maybe it will happen without much resistance, expecially if she senses that signing the car over will get you to reduce your pressure on her). Then reposess your own car, and sell it for a profit. That's a GREAT idea, judge4re.

Also, since you say you won't really miss the money, I thought the idea of her working the loan off might be a good plan... if she's only working 24 hours a week, there's plenty of time left for her to clean your house, pick up your dry cleaning, run errands, grocery shop, buy gifts, take your daily driver for emissions testing & oil changes, whatever... I can easily think of COOUNTLESS little details in my life that I would LOVE to delegate!

Lots of good ideas in this thread... combine a few of them, get creative, and you may be able to turn this in your favor.

 

After some thinking about this in the shower (man, am I pathetic, thinking about F-Chat in the shower):

At her proposed $100/mo., with a ~3 year payoff, looks like you're not charging any interest.... don't forget to add that to your calculations and contracts during re-negotiation... if you end up in small claims, your #'s are higher.

I've done the small claims thing a couple times, and winning the judgement is easy, getting paid is quite another story. At least here in CT, the courts don't help you very much with that part of it.

While it might make you feel better, DON'T do this! Why would you want to ruin YOUR ASSET in this whole problem? The car has value... you might be able to sell it soon and become whole again.

 

Man up and write the loan off.

Get this loser woman out of your life and mind. The sooner you stop wasting time trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip, you can move ahead.

What is your time worth? You will easily eat up $4k worrying, harrassing and just plain obsessing about this. LET IT GO

 

Having principles is usually cheap; enforcing your principles can get expensive. As long as you're willing to pay the price ...

 

Cut your losses
First lesson in life, never back a person into a corner, without leaving them a door to exit. The more you threaten, the more "justification" the other party will come up with in their own mind for this sort of behaviour. Go to court you may win, you may not. If you don't you'll be up for both your own and their legal costs. Even if you do win, you may end up being paid on their terms in any event. A court is never going to give you title to the car.
My advice FWIW, make up with the other party, come to a compromise you can both live with. Make them think everything is OK again. Get your revenge later, in good time, whe you have all the ammunition you need.
Remember revenge is a dish best served cold.

 

Why did you start off by referring to her as "them" and "they" and then suddenly switch to "her" and "she"?

Is there more than one person involved?

 

Dan.

Is this worth it? in you first post you said the money is no big deal, and that it's the principle. It just seems to me, that this is going to cause you more aggravation, wasted time, and stress than its worth.

Is there more to the story? Did she lead you on, then ignore you after you lent her the money? It just seems like you are taking this personally.

Regardless. Even if you win in court getting her to pay isn't going to be easy. Do you want to be dealing with this woman for the next 5+ years?

IMO... Write it off.
Simon

 

I agree, write it off as a learning experience. Unless you really need to recover this money it will not be worth your time/trouble/frustration/etc.

Matt

 

Dan here's the thing on the IM's you can not prove that she was the one sending them. She can come up with "that wasn't me that must have been someone else. Maybe Dan hacked into my password and sent the IM's to himself. This was a gift..." Blah blah blah.
Courts are rather leary of admitting new technology into evidence as it can be altered with that same technology.

You can sue her for the 4 grand plus all of your expenses, but what if you lose? Are you prepared to go into the hole for another 10 grand?

 

Interesting thread.

A couple of years ago I leant my brother $35K to upgrade some equiptment at his company. I knew this was a dicey decision, as he is family and if he didn't pay me back and I pushed, it could get uncomfortable. I decided to basically give him the money. We called it a loan, but I considered it a gift, if I never got it back, I would let it go. I would rather have him as a brother than the money anyway. I basically forgot about it.

Anyway, he set an interest rate and I accepted. He paid me for a year and a half and then decided it might be better if I just owned part of the company.

So now I own part of his company.

Worked out ok for me (if the Co. stays in business), but I knew it could go bad, and I accepted that. Were it not family, I would not have done it this way though.

 

Four grand is a pretty small price to pay to find out how she REALLY operates. Some guys don't figure this out until they marry that kind of woman

 

Dude, are you kidding me? She either (a) wanted you to think that so that you would give her the money, or (b) wants you to think that so that you will stop fantasizing about all these different ways to ruin her life over $4k.