Postal Letter

How would you guys feel about this situation?

How would you guys feel about this situation? Ok-you get a settlement from a car accident,and a family member asks to borrow $5000 of it (the settlement was roughly $30,000) to use to be able to get her house,and swears she's going to pay it back. Let me add-this family member is an in-law,and works for the US postal service making $25+ an hour. She does have three kids,and is married to a worker for the town she lives in. Three years later-You've not saw a penny of the money back,even though you've asked for it repeatedly. (You spent the rest of the settlement on a place to live and a car) Your electric gets turned off b/c your funds are low b/c your spouse is drawing unemployment as the only income,and somehow the bill was overlooked. You don't realize you'd gotten a disconnect notice (we'd looked at the bill for the month prior,not the current month) and hadn't paid on time until the electric goes off. Long story short-you call the spouse's family,and have to borrow money to get it back on. The in-law that borrowed the $5000 from you covers half of the money to get it reconnected. (Reminder-the half of the bill she paid is all you've saw of the $5000 that she borrowed from you) and another in-law covers the other half. The in-law that borrowed the $5000 insists that you pay her back before the end of the next week! Is it just me,or does that seem like it's totally unfair?? Here this in-law is owing me $5,000,and we'd borrowed $240 for half of what it cost to get the electric turned back on,and owing us $5000 is insisting we pay her back???? Would that flat out outrage anyone else,or is it just me? I find it rather irritating that she borrowed all of that money from us and didn't return one red cent of it,yet is demanding we pay her back within the next week the money we had to have to get our electric turned on for a CABLE bill!!!! Not even a necessary utility while we're struggling while he's seeking new employment to keep food on the table and bills paid. We have two kids of our own to take care of,and we're at this moment not receiving any assistance at all. Sorry it was so long,had to explain the whole thing Yea,I told him we should had her sign a written agreement,but he had good faith in his family that she would pay us back. Long story short,he wishes he would have listened to me.lol I would have handled it that way. We've talked to her (before having to have borrowed the money) about something as little as $15 or $20 a month,and she wouldn't even do that. So yea,long story short again,we got screwed out of $5000

Public Comments

1. I would be outraged, I would be like you'll get the 240 back when I get back my 5,000. and if she doesn't like that I say go ask a lawyer about it because thats not right.
2. That pisses me off just reading it take here to judge Judy or some shit if that's not an option then don't pay em back till you get your money but the truth is there probly a dead bet and wont pay you back ever unless u go to court
3. I'd tell her it was a down payment on the $5000 she borrowed and said she'd pay back. I'm surprised you didn't write up an agreement then or take her to small claims court yet.
4. go to small claims court NOW or else you will never see that money.
5. If you and whomever you loaned the money to didn't hash out a repayment plan (I won't be able to pay anything for 18 months, but after that I can pay you X amount each month, double X when we get our tax return in 20whatever year, and we'll have you paid back by SuchandSuch date), you're kind of out of luck here. You don't have the option of dictating when you get paid back as of now. This might be a good opportunity to pay her back the $240 and then working out a repayment plan for the $5000. Keep these two things totally separate. "Thank you for lending us the money to get that taken care of. I'll be able to get half of it to you next pay day and the other half the payday after that. Now let's work out a repayment schedule for that $5000. I know it'll take a while, so what can you do each month?" I do understand this frustration a bit, really. Early this summer we lent my brother-in-law $750 (my hubby took on an extra part-time job to cover it because we didn't just have the cash laying around). About 4 months later, we've been repaid a little less than half. But, they've taken a family vacation, my sister-in-law bought a bunch of nice clothes, and is currently enjoying her birthday gift of a flight to CA to visit some of her family. Part of me really wants to do the "you owe us money so you shouldn't be allowed to enjoy anything nice until you pay us back because that's not fair for you to spend all of that frivolously before paying us back" route, but that's not how this kind of thing works. We also somehow missed paying our car insurance and electric bills over the past month, accidents that happen. I can't go blaming those mistakes on "well, we wouldn't be in this spot if we hadn't let Brother-in-law that money; it's his fault." Yes, work out some sort of repayment plan and make sure you both stick to it, then let it go. It's already done.
6. Here's a rule I live by when it comes to loaning money (or anything at all), unless I know for a fact that if I lend it out I am not going to miss it, I don't lend it. This is for when IF (which is usually WHEN) it is not returned, it does not start this kind of b.s. Yes, they should pay you back but frankly, it's been 3 years making this a lesson learned. As for you hitting rough times, chances are that $5000 wouldn't be in the bank waiting for just this occasion anyway even had they paid you back, so it's not their problem and to expect them to pay it back now after you have been nagging them for 3 years is just silly. Before you toss me a thumbs down, remember, you asked for an opinion not a solution.
7. I've been in a very very similar boat. You feel in the back of your mind that you should get a written agreement but you don't want to be so formal and impersonal with family, unfortunately family is some of the worst people to loan to because they know you won't come down on them like a bank would. My wife loaned $1000 to her ex-boyfriend's mom who later decided to not pay us back. We sued her in small claims court and even without a written agreement the judge saw right through her charade and ordered her to pay us in 30 days or face jail time. On day 29 we got a fedex express certified money order for the full amount (yay!). Now i have some policies: A) if i loan family under $100 I don't require an agreement but I also don't really expect the money back, though they don't get any more loans until that is paid off, but I don't bug them about it either. and B) if they need from $100 to $500 then I just make sure a few other family members are in the discussion as witnesses but I still won't push it too much. And C) if they need more than $500 then I am quite formal about it, full written document with a set payment plan signed by both of us and 1 or 2 witnesses, then photocopied for both of our records. If you want the money back you should file a small claims case soon because in WA here there is a statute of about 3 years after which you won't have a case. Oh yeah a lot of legal advice we got from Judge Judy. You can go to judgejudy.com to apply to be on their show, they love family drama. their producer called us and said they'd fly both parties out there and put us up in a hotel for free and the show pays us so the defendant gets off scot free, unfortunately my wife was too shy to be on TV. And we kinda wanted the defendant to pay, out of principle.