Requesting money so they won&#39;t go through insurance, but they already have My daughter backed into a parked car which caused minor bumper damage to the car. She found the owner and exchanged info. Next day he puts pressure on me on how I don't want my insurance rates to rise, so bring $1k cash and meet him, then he won't file. However, I find out through insurance that he had already filed the day of the accident. I had decided to not give him money as I really didn't like the pressure and having to deal with him. He definitely was attempting to commit what I would deem fraud, how should I be addressing this?
If he is still pressuring you for the money even after filing insurance, talk to your city or county prosecutor's office. If you call the police, they may say they're too busy to deal with it and that it's a "he said-she said" situation anyway. But if you go to the local prosecutor, they should be more interested, as this could be a felony, considering the amount of money demanded, and they can instruct the police to help investigate.
If you want to get out, and are willing to lose $270, you can not sign the lease and demand a return of your security deposit. You could ask for a return of the other fees as well, but you are less likely to be successful. They would probably have trouble enforcing a security deposit against you if you didn't have a lease with them, and would probably have trouble demanding you sign a lease when they changed the unit. You should probably get it all back, because you applied for it, but it probably isn't worth litigating over. I would also encourage you to turn to social media sites if they have one, or to sites like Yelp, if they do not. Many businesses are sensitive to this and if you are truthful if could provide you with some leverage.
There have been cases in the UK where paying someone's legal bills was interpreted as joining their case. So when A with no money libels someone, and B with deep pockets pays A's lawyer, then B risks being held liable for damages if A gets convicted. So B should be very careful. Just giving you money is probably the safest. But attorney-client privilege is between attorney and client. I have been laid off twice with my company asking me to take an employment lawyer and paying for it. (Interestingly each time the bill was exactly the maximum amount the company was willing to pay :-) It would have been absurd if my company could demand information that is under attorney-client privilege just because they paid the bill. Why did two companies pay the lawyers bill? Because that way they ensure that the separation is without problems. The lawyer explained the settlement contract and what it meant exactly. They also checked that the contract didn’t contain anything unacceptable which the company would have fixed. So if I had tried to sue them later I would have no chance to win (but there was no reason to sue). Another reason not to sue was that the company offered I settlement that was very significantly more than was legally required, but if you sued them you would only get what you got in court - most likely less than you would get without suing. So basically they paid to make sure I would have no reason to sue them later.
This is a context where you need to lawyer up. There are two issues, his share of the costs, and his permission to construct in part on his property. You mother has the same rights, so she likewise can refuse to sign off on his scheme (the lawyers negotiate a resolution). Assuming both parties are insured and (to make it more complex) have different insurance companies, the companies limit how much they will contribute for their part of the damage. Normally, you find a contractor who will do it for a given price, let's say $10,000, and the parties split the cost. Both parties have an interest in the choice of contractor because of cost issues, and quality of product and service (though the insurance company cares about the cost). If one of the parties is a contractor, they too can legitimately submit a bid, and then the parties can decide which is the best bid. It is not fraud if a contractor, who is an insured, submits a bid and makes a profit on the job. It would be fraud if that party withheld material facts from an insurance company. In the context of massive disaster insurance claims, the insurance companies may not perform a rigorous investigation (e.g. may not ask for multiple bids). It would then be a material fact that one of the insureds stood to profit from this arrangement, so the insurance companies would likely wish to see evidence that the costs were not unreasonably inflated. If the neighbors bid is in line with industry standard (and the insurance companies know who the contractor is), there is nothing fishy about the arrangement. This assumes that both parties are being cooperative with each other. When that is not the case, lawyers are good at getting cooperation (not letting the other party push their client around).
(Converting comment into an answer) You could sue for criminal damage, if any actual damage is caused during the removal of those notices - however, that will cost you an initial outlay in solicitors fees and court costs and isn't guaranteed to have a successful outcome. You could also just take this as a learnable event and not park in other peoples spots? The owner of the parking spot may have the legal right to have your car removed at your expense, and/or issue you with a penalty charge if suitable notices have been posted, so you might consider yourself to have got off lightly here perhaps?
It is a principle of equity (of which damages are a part) that you are not entitled to be enriched. Let's say that the first collision did damage costing $500 to repair. If after the second collision the cost of the repair is now $700, the first driver is liable for $500 and the second for $200. That said, let your insurer sort it out - that's what you pay your premiums for.
From a legal perspective co-signing a loan isn't the same thing loaning the money to the other co-signer. When you co-sign a loan with someone else both you and the other person are equal parties in the loan, both jointly responsible in fully paying off the principle and interest. If loan is defaulted on, the bank can pursue legal remedies to try to recover its money against either or both of you. If you end up having to pay part or all of the loan, then whether or not you can recover any of that money will depend on whatever agreement you made with the other person. Given that you probably wouldn't a have a signed written agreement with the other signer in case like this, it'll probably come down to whether or not you can prove (on the balance of probabilities) that the other party promised to you to pay off the full amount of the loan. It will help if the loan is specifically tied to a car, a house or other property that the other party benefits from but you don't. Note that you'd have to give serious consideration to whether the other party can actually pay the amount owed. There's no point going to court to obtain an unenforceable judgement. I also should say that from a financial perspective it does make some sense to think of it as if you were loaning out the money yourself. While there's a big and significant difference between the two, in that your bank account isn't affected unless the other person defaults, if they do the result is going to be pretty much the same. Indeed in that case it's not much different than just giving the other person the money. When co-signing a loan you really need to trust that other person.
To start off, you appear to be confusing assault and battery. Assault does not require physical contact in order for it to occur. Verbal assault is still a crime, but in your situation it doesn't appear that any verbal assault has occurred - he is not actively threatening you with harm, and you are not in fear of being harmed. Yelling can sometimes qualify as verbal assault, but any form of verbal assault is very hard to prove because it leaves no evidence. Unless someone other than the two parties involved comes forward, it likely won't go anywhere. Assuming this has been going on for some time, what you appear to be experiencing is harassment which usually qualifies as a civil matter, and police will not take any action other than asking one of you to leave in order to resolve the issue. Most often, they will ask you (as the person being harassed) to leave, but that can also be in your benefit. If you can prove the other person's harassment caused you to have to leave in order to be comfortable again, then you can claim damages and can sue that other person for the harassment - basically suing for damages of not being able to live in and enjoy your residence which you pay for, as well as any additional costs you encountered by having to find an alternate place to live because of their actions. Again, this is difficult to prove without someone else who has witnessed the continued harassment stepping forward (e.g. your guest who might have only witnessed it once is probably not an incredibly strong witness, because harassment is often defined as having persisted over time, and they cannot testify to more than what they saw in one night). The case would likely just devolve to a matter of "he-said" between the two of you - he will likely claim you just didn't like him and are making things up to get money out of him. You'd need to make sure you have other evidence that supports your side of the story. As far as claiming self-defense, my completely non-legal and mostly combination of "I wish this were common sense" and "I hate when people try to justify unneeded violence" advice is never rely on the self-defense plea. Unless you are in fear of your life, your best course of action if he threatens violence or actually hits you is to leave and let the police handle it. If you have physical marks on you and he has none on him, the case becomes much more clear-cut. If you fight back, and you both have marks, then it again becomes a case of "he-said" and it's hard to prove who initiated the confrontation without cooperating witnesses, and you'd likely both end up being arrested when the police showed up if they can't determine who the instigator was. Just because you know something was in self-defense doesn't necessarily mean the police, a judge, or a jury will believe you. Ultimately, if you're uncomfortable with the place you're living, you should start planning to move elsewhere immediately (which you appear to be doing). If you can both a) avoid financial damages to yourself by preventing yourself being put into a situation that requires you to move quickly without much planning and b) prevent the continued harassment - then you should. Don't let the pot just keep boiling over until it explodes all over the kitchen. You have the power to make this stop too, and you shouldn't rely on other people making the situation go away for you (e.g. your landlord is bound by a contract, and evicting a tenant based on your word can open them to a lot of legal troubles - they have to be very careful with how they handle such a situation). Yes, it sucks that it's not your fault you have to go through the extra effort or move away to resolve the situation, but getting yourself out of the situation should be your number one priority, and doing it yourself is often the easiest solution.