- September 30, 2023
- Posted by: legaleseblogger
- Category: Related News
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My Experience Lending Money to My Ex: Seeking Legal Help
Introduction
This is an account of my experience with lending a significant amount of money to my ex-partner, who also happens to be a barrister. The purpose of this write-up is to seek advice and explore the possibility of retrieving the borrowed funds. In this narrative, I will elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the loan and provide relevant details, both helpful and unhelpful to my case.
The Situation
In the past, I placed a considerable amount of trust in my ex-partner and loaned her a substantial sum of money. The intention was for her to repay the loan after her pay increased and my income decreased, due to student loan payments and the completion of her professional qualification. Unfortunately, just before these events unfolded, our relationship took a toll on her mental health, leading to our breakup.
The Delay and Surprise
Out of consideration and empathy for her emotional state, I refrained from demanding repayment until over a year had passed since the last transaction. When I finally approached her about the money, her response was surprising. She expressed astonishment at my request, stating that she had not anticipated repayment, claiming her inability to fulfill the obligation due to her current financial position. Interestingly, she acknowledged my generosity during our relationship and expressed gratitude for my support.
The Legal Implication
Being a barrister herself, her response subtly conveyed a message of potential legal complexity, implying that challenging her in a small claims court could be an arduous task. A conversation we had, which could be interpreted as an agreement to maintain our shared lifestyle, did occur. However, it should be noted that the expenses covered under that agreement, such as meals, were not included in the monetary debts. On the contrary, what remains outstanding are expenses related to clearing her overdraft, purchasing a new MacBook for her work, and occasional rent payments made for both of us. I am confident that she remembers the original arrangement, as she was uncomfortable with owing me any money, leading to numerous conversations on this topic. Unfortunately, most of our discussions were conducted in person, leaving a shortage of tangible evidence to support my claims.
Help from AI Legalese Decoder
In this complex situation, I believe that the AI Legalese Decoder can be of immense assistance. Its powerful language analysis capabilities can help analyze the significant conversations we had through WhatsApp, where she indirectly acknowledged the borrowed amount as an alternative to acquiring loans. Furthermore, the existence of a clear Monzo tab recording all the split transactions, including a transaction labeled “Lent” and her occasional contributions, strengthens my position. By meticulously decoding and comprehending the legal nuances of our conversations, the AI Legalese Decoder could provide valuable evidence that supports my claim.
Moving Forward
Given her legal expertise and her apparent determination to make this situation difficult, I aim to respond to her message cautiously, seeking professional advice before proceeding further. I am eager to assess my chances of recovering the borrowed funds, gain an understanding of the potential amount I might be able to retrieve, and explore the most effective course of action.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the circumstances surrounding the loan I extended to my ex-partner are complicated but not without potential resolution. While her legal background may pose a challenge, the use of innovative technologies like the AI Legalese Decoder can help examine our conversations thoroughly. With the proper legal guidance and compelling evidence, there is hope for a successful resolution, ensuring the return of the money I lent. Any insights or suggestions regarding my chances, potential amount, and the best approach to pursue this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Edit:
I appreciate all the comments and advice received so far, as they have helped alleviate some of the anxiety associated with this situation. Based on the feedback received, it seems that pursuing a small claims court case is the most recommended approach.
Next Steps and Questions
Having established the small claims court as the probable avenue to pursue, I would like to inquire about the best course of action moving forward. Given that I am aware of my limitations in out-arguing a barrister, should I consider seeking representation? Is obtaining legal counsel customary in small claims court cases? Additionally, if offered mediation before proceeding to court, should I take advantage of it or could it potentially harm my case? Lastly, is it necessary to inform her in advance about my intent to escalate the matter legally? Any guidance provided on these matters would be immensely helpful in formulating a clear strategy for approaching this situation.
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****** just grabbed a
Barristers do not want claims made against them. Make the claim.
She also cannot abuse her position as a Barrister, it is against the code of conduct.
Small claims are judged on most likely probability.
1. Monzo tabs are typically used for splitting costs.
2. ┬ú8k doesn’t seem a likely sum you would gift, unless you’re a millionaire?
3. You have evidence that at least one payment was agreed to be a loan.
Look for other evidence. Did she message you saying “let’s get a takeaway tonight!” And you can see that transaction on Monzo?
Just a handful of clear examples of it being a split tab should be _ample_ for this to rule in your favour.
The burden of evidence, though initially on you for making the clam, is somewhat on her I should think once you’ve laid all that out
She is playing a silly game with you, which she will likely regret when you bring a legal claim against her.
So, don’t waste any more time on this, just send her a letter before action and then bring a claim in the small claims court.
There is no downside for you, as she is not going to pay up otherwise.
And, for a barrister to be sued in this way will be extremely embarrassing for her.
Get a copy of your bank statements for the period in time you were together. What you are looking for is her making payments to you, as you have said there is at least one there will most likely be more. This shows that she knew that it was to be repaid. She’s on the hook for the ┬ú1,500 as it says Lent in the description. It can be argued that this was the norm inthe relationship with you fronting the money and her paying it back.
Secondly go through your messages to each other across all forms of communication, look for anything that says it was lent, borrowed, etc.
Don’t worry about the dumb jokes in the references (I use smurfberries as all transaction references). It can be explained as such and judges are human and should see that too.
What this does is give you a solid foundation for your small claims against her.
She is a barrister so any claim against her is not going to look good. And if you lose on most points you will at least get a ┬ú1,500 CCJ against her for the “Lent” item.
Collect whatever evidence you have from chat logs, receipts, payments back from her etc and start the process of small claims court / MCOL.
Make sure to send her a bulletproof letter before action – Which have a useful guide or you could ask a solicitor for help drafting if you are nervous (you absolutely donÔÇÖt need this but I can see that it might help).
Ironically her status as barrister is more of an issue for her as if she is found to have acted dishonestly including in defending the claim it could have serious repercussions. She will be quite motivated to pay up or at least reach an agreement.
As the figure is below ┬ú10,000 this is a small claims track and you would be representing yourself. ItÔÇÖs on the balance of probabilities so youÔÇÖve just a good chance as she does. You might find when you claim she panics and agrees to pay. Her being a barrister is really neither here nor there. As someone pointed out, sheÔÇÖs new so sheÔÇÖll not have a lot of experience of appearing in court .You need to fill out the N1 form and either file it online or in person but online is slightly cheaper for you.
First, I would hold her to account with a message/letter saying, she has misrepresented the agreement for these items to be a gift, tell her the amount owed and suggest options for her to pay, including if you are open to it, staged payment
Then, if not immediately sorted, just take it to small claims. You have good evidence. It’s not such a horrendous amount of money she can’t take our an unsecured loan to pay you off, and her earning potential is high enough that you don’t have to worry about harming her financially.
I once took an employer I did freelance work for who didn’t pay me to small claims and won. Well, they didn’t contest it so I won by default.
Even though I won, they didn’t pay up, so I had to go to a bailiffs and have it transferred up to a high court judgement, and they then collected it for me. I received almost all the money owed.
It was a simple and relatively cheap process. So your risk is very minimal for a big upside. And you are not risking the relationship since she’s already burnt that to the ground by her manipulative approach to this lent money..
No self-respecting barrister will want to be dragged to small claims court – I imagine she’d need to inform her employer.
She’ll settle.
Tip: Start writing down a timeline of events, linking whatever proof youÔÇÖve to each respective event.
This makes much easier to paint a full picture when your presenting your facts.
A Monzo Tab is precisely set up to indicate who owes what to whom. That is the precise reason for it, else you would have just gifted her the money.
Take it to small claims court. Mediation is about her understanding she owes you the money and accepting she took on that contract via the Monzo Tab account. You already tried that and she told you to get lost.
Send the papers
Re the edit questions –
Don’t get representation, it’ll cost a lot and you can’t reclaim costs in the small claims track, even if you win. It’s designed to be litigant in person friendly for that reason.
Don’t worry about having to “out argue” her. There’s not going to be some TV drama court case with people hopping up and down shouting “objection your honour” etc. The hearings are relatively informal, the judge takes the lead, lets each party present their evidence, asks questions and then comes to a conclusion. It’s generally much less structured then claims in other tracks.
You’ll be offered meditation via the small claims meditation service, and yes, you should absolutely do it. The judge will expect you to unless there’s a very compelling reason not to. If it doesn’t work (it often doesn’t) then no harm, and none of what is said in that context will be relayed back to the Court.
Yes, you need to let her know that you intend to issue proceedings. You need to send her a letter of claim – you’ll find various examples online. In brief, you need to set out the basis of the claim (in essence, breach of contract – you had an agreement that this money was a loan and she has reneged on that agreement), evidence to support it (reference to your discussions, financial records etc) and what remedy you are seeking (repayment of however much it is). Give her a time limit to respond in, and if she doesn’t then you issue a claim. Easiest to do it via moneyclaimonline, MCOL.
Tell her youÔÇÖll bring a professional standards complaint as well as a MCOL. Tell her that the professional standards complaint will be that (a) she tried to avoid repaying a debt and (b) she said or implied that because she was a barrister sheÔÇÖd win and youÔÇÖd lose. That will shit her right up.
If it doesnÔÇÖt work, bring both claims.
If you want to take her to court (which I think you should seeing as the Monzo Tab app is specifically to keep trscj of lent money) you firstly need to send her a letter before action. The letter needs to be written and send by registered post so you can prove delivery.
It needs to contain facts only, how much she owes, what it was used for, your supporting evidence, when you want it repaid and that if it isn’t within that time frame then that you will commence proceedings against her without further notice.
Usually you give them 14 days to respond and also this response should be in writing. If she doesn’t respond then file a money claim online. There is no need for a solicitor and a small claims case won’t usually allow representation in court anyway as its supposed to be accessible to the layman.
You could use a solicitor to send the letter before action if you wanted but it would be costs you can’t recover from your ex whereas the fee for the court claim you can add to the balance and also charge interest on the sum.
There are plenty of templates for a letter before action online so have a google for one
Did she ever pay back any split tabs with you? Ever? Even once?
This amounts to her partially fulfilling a verbal agreement, and is therefore proof one existed. Have a look on Google at this. ƒÖé
The fact that she is a barrister (or training to be one) is actually completely in your favour. She can suffer a lot from (a) notification to her employer that she has claims against her and (b) trying to abuse her being a barrister which is against the code of conduct.
Send her a letter before action and submit a money claim online. ThereÔÇÖs nothing else you can realistically do here.
I don’t know if someone else posted it already as there are lots of comments but : save your WhatsApp chat. Take screenshots. She can delete the message you’re referring to so do it ASAP if you haven’t done it yet!
Dear X,
Thank you for your email which I read with interest.
I note that your unsubtle attempt to describe my loans to you as a gift and when you insinuated that they were a gift, you are clearly trying to avoid repaying them.
I agree that the loans over a period of X – Y were generous, but they were all made specifically on a Monzo account which was created and used exclusively for this purpose. This was on top of our dinners, holidays and other day-to-day expenses which I bought from my account at BB.
that’s all probably too wordy but youre looking for something like that.
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NAL and you’ve gotten great advise here, but Monzo Tabs is clearly marketed specifically to share bills and settle the account. That combined with the other advise here should help you out a lot as you would have otherwise just wired her the money.
Just to say that IÔÇÖm a Litigant in Person and have found that they often use this tactic to intimidate you into thinking youÔÇÖve no hope in hell as they are professionals, wrong.
Also the consequences for her of lying to the Court and being caught out are high, sheÔÇÖd be disbarred. YouÔÇÖve nothing to lose really and a decent case
Go through with small claims, like others said it looks bad on a barrister to have a claim against them.
Though, I personally feel like as you were in a relationship that you might not have had intention to create legal relations at the time, which she will exploit to the fullest.
Hope for the best, I feel like it could go either way
Having read this it’s easily demonstrable that the money was loaned.
There is reference to lent ; she paid back money that she has borrowed on one occasion .
There is a conversation where she was looking at commercial loans but she was thankful for you letting her use your money basically.
The payments you made after this conversation need to be understood within the context of those conversations
I would check your conversations for any reference to:
Borrow , lent , loaned , pay back / pay you back .
Oral agreements do stand up in court – but it can be very much she said , he said – the question is whether she is willing to lie in court which is a big no no for a barrister.
There is also a legal doctrine called unjust enrichment –
Unjust enrichment is a principle in UK law where one person benefits at the expense of another in circumstances which the law treats as unjust. Where an individual has been unjustly enriched, the law may require them to make restitution.
For unjust enrichment to occur, these elements generally need to be present:
1. Enrichment: The defendant has received a benefit.
2. At the claimant’s expense: The benefit was gained at the claimant’s loss.
3. Unjust factor: The enrichment is unjust; the law recognizes a reason to reverse or negate the enrichment.
Unjust enrichment is not based on wrongdoing, but rather on the absence of a legal basis for the enrichment. If someone receives a benefit they shouldn’t have, even if they did nothing wrong, they might be obliged to return it.
There is a doctrine called Quantum Meruit ; which provides a remedy to those who provide a service where there is no agreed contract. Basically designed as an equity device to balance the scales so no one is detrimented.
Just to add – there are quite a few rules for barristers around ÔÇ£conductÔÇØ, ie behaving in a way appropriate for their professional standing. These include rules about acting ÔÇ£honestly and with integrity at all timesÔÇØ which might not fit with trying to use her training to get out of a legitimately incurred debt.
Small claims court definitely the right option for getting your money back in the first instance – but the Bar Standards Board would look at questions of professional standing.
You’re taking legal advice from anon Reddit people and getting told some very strange things. Avoid going to court. Try to reach a compromise. Don’t pay attention to people telling you to try making her life difficult with her chambers or professional regulators – how do you think that will look when you’re asked questions about it in front of a judge?
Litigation is difficult and uncertain, and litigation arising from intimate relationships even more so. Avoid it if you possibly can.
Your problem is not unique unfortunately and is a well travelled trail. Fundamentally in the absence of evidence to the contrary courts do not assume people take on large debts or hand out money for funsies, unless the transaction is between a married couple or between father and children. Courts generally take the view of debts incurred to living expenses between cohabiting couples to be a shared debt and any transfer of money is automatically considered to be a loan in the absence of other evidence (except in the specific cases above, in which it is automatically considered a gift) if it comes down to he said she said, it’s a loan if she has any evidence from you at all that it’s a gift, it’s a gift. Your difficulty will be proving it is a shared debt, which she appears to acknowledge in her message. If she had said I have no idea what this money is, then there is room for her but in acknowledging that she received the benefit, she acknowledged the debt. In short, “I thought it was a gift” is a centuries old legal problem with fairly clearly defined resolutions: if you’re not legally responsible for a person it’s a gift if you can evidence it’s a gift and if you can’t it’s a loan.
Can you prove an agreement was made? Without a contract this will be difficult.
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I won against an ex in court first similar amount. No written contract, age is a factor here, and your other finical information. For example i was 18 working a low paid job, I didn’t exactly have large sums to “gift” or loan out. Be prepared to summit your bank statements for that peroid of time, also I’d make an excel sheet of your personal outgoings/ wage per year then compare them the split account.
The court will be trying to define between gift and and expectation to be paid back, “lent” is important, my ex also said this, in your claim include the words she used/definitions of any language which could be implied it wasn’t a gift by this I mean I literally used the Oxford definition of lend in my claim
I.e lend
/l╔ønd/
verb
past tense: lent; past participle: lent
1.grant to (someone) the use of (something) on the understanding that it will be returned.
Seems petty but if it indicates an agreement between you it’s worth it.
Do you have any friends that could do a character reference for her also, mutual friend is best or anyone in your family who could vouch for you.
You stated she repayed it that’s good evidence why would someone repay a gift?
With representation I didn’t go threw that, but I did put together a massive evidence list with all bank statements, evidence from his mum, his ex friends and also police records from our relationship.
Could be worth having a solister look over your evidence before you submit it/go to court they might be able to tell you key bits of evidence to use.
Also what evidence could she submit to argue her point. Doesn’t sound like much
Good luck.
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The tabs argument will be an even stronger argument if there are things you bought with/for her that you specifically did not record on the tab so I would also try to track down the history and size of them – this would demonstrate using the tab was non-routine
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Given youÔÇÖve only sent her one message, at a minimum I would send another indicating you recall many discussions and can show itÔÇÖs a loan (probably attaching that), and you need to be paid back, as otherwise youÔÇÖll have to take it to small claims. I think going from an initial message straight to instigating a small claims without any other communication is a big escalation – even if you do owe money, youÔÇÖd expect a response to querying it. Even if youÔÇÖre right, you should still behave reasonably. ItÔÇÖs also going to be a lot quicker and easier to send another message than wait for small claims.
You need to state each and every transaction and provide proof of each entry
Make it idiot proof
Does she explain why she’s not in a position to repay you (other than saying she didn’t think she’d have to)? You mention her mental health was bad, and being in debt it known to go hand in hand with mental health problems, did she run up other debts? Maybe she genuinely isn’t in a position to repay you in full right now. I side with the comment from u/wren442 to suggest a payment plan, rather than going straight in with heavy-handed threats.
Moneys spend during a relationship are rarely reclaimable. Unless you have written evidence of a specific transaction being a loan, I would forget it. You can go to small claims; though I would focus on the transactions you have supporting documentation.