How can a lender of a small loan protect himself from the borrower not paying them back? An acquaintance asked me to lend him money. I believed his story and lent him $100. He promised to pay me back $150 in 5 days time. It's been months and he hasn't paid me anything. I have heard that this interest rate is illegally high for a loan. Is this correct? I hadn't really consider this to be a loan but I guess it is. How can small loan lenders protect themselves? Going to court for such a small amount isn't worth it and I don't know his current address. Would have holding collateral been a legal solution? Some loan agreements found on Docracy have terms that may mitigate the impact on the lender when the borrow doens't repay (on time). Late Charge: Any payment not remunerated within 10 days of its due date shall be subject to a belatedly charge of 5 percent (%) of the payment, not to exceed $500 for any such late installment. ... Collection fees: If this note is placed with a legal representative for collection, then Borrower agrees to pay an attorney's fee of ten percent (10%) of the voluntary balance. This fee will be added to the unpaid balance of the loan. ... Costs: The Borrower shall be liable for the costs, if any, in respect of the drafting and execution of this contact [sic]. Would any of these terms or similar ones make it productive to take legal action against a borrower of $100? Would a term like &quot;if the lender needs to resort to legal action to enforce a term of this agreement, the borrow will reimburse him for all related expenses and his time&quot; be enforceable?
I have heard that this interest rate is illegally high for a loan. Is this correct? Yes. This is an annualized interest rate of 715,586,124,880,210%, which is far, far in excess of the maximum interest rate allowed by law. The maximum legally allowed interest rate in British Columbia is 60% per annum. So, an interest rate of 65 cents or more in a five day period on a loan of $100.00 is illegal. I don't know his current address. Lending money without collateral to people without knowing their current address is just plain stupid when it comes to lending practices. Nobody does that without a primarily donative intent. Would have holding collateral been a legal solution? Potentially. This is essentially the business model of a pawn shop. In the case of a pawn shop, the borrower delivers tangible personal property to the pawn shop owner who takes custody of it, which serves as collateral for a small loan with a set, legal interest rate, for a fixed period of time much greater than five days (typically several weeks or to several months). If the loan is not repaid, the collateral becomes the property of the lender in full payment of the loan, and the parties haggle in advance over the fair market value of the collateral against which the customer may borrow the full amount. A pawn is essentially equivalent to an outright sale of tangible personal property (almost always used) in exchange for cash, with a right to rescind the deal for a modest interest charge within X number of days after the sale. Since the pawn shop owner has some asset of the borrower to collect from in the event of non-payment, and the loan is &quot;non-recourse&quot; (i.e. collection rights are limited to taking ownership of the collateral), it isn't important to even know the address of the borrower, and no lawsuits are necessary for the lending pawn shop owner to be made whole if the loan is not repaid. The down side of running a pawn shop is that the owner needs to have considerable skill to value the collateral at a price sufficient to repay the loan together with a fair share of the administrative expenses of the operation on a case by case basis, for the very modest profit margin associated with a typical pawn shop. Most people who are skilled enough to value tangible personal property accurately enough to make money running a pawn ship are also skilled enough to do other things that pay better. Late Charge: Any payment not remunerated within 10 days of its due date shall be subject to a belatedly charge of 5 percent (%) of the payment, not to exceed $500 for any such late installment. Late charges are considered in the maximum interest rate calculation, so you need a much longer term loan and a much lower interest rate for this to be legally permissible. Collection fees: If this note is placed with a legal representative for collection, then Borrower agrees to pay an attorney's fee of ten percent (10%) of the voluntary balance. This fee will be added to the unpaid balance of the loan. Not sure what is meant by the &quot;voluntary balance.&quot; It isn't inherently improper to include the costs of collection in a loan agreement, and indeed, I think that this may be the default rule of law in British Columbia without any contractual term under loser pays rules of civil procedure. But, a court can decline to award more than the &quot;reasonable&quot; legal fees incurred to collect a debt, and it is not at all clear that even the minimal amount of legal fees one could incur to collect a debt would be reasonable to collect a loan of $100 and interest. Likewise, while there are &quot;hard money loans&quot; (i.e. loans secured only by collateral and no personal obligation to pay that can be enforced against an individual's assets in court), where it is customary for the legal costs of drafting the loan documents to be paid by the borrower rather than the lender, for the most part, this simply makes no sense, because even 12 minutes of legal time (0.2 hours in the typical legal billing format) is an excessive amount to charge for a $100 loan for a five day period of time. This would typically be $50-$60 or more. It would probably be treated as an interest charge and hence would be illegal in British Columbia. Would a term like &quot;if the lender needs to resort to legal action to enforce a term of this agreement, the borrow will reimburse him for all related expenses and his time&quot; be enforceable? Reimbursement for out of pocket court filing fees and any photocopying costs and process server costs is likely to be enforceable. Reimbursement for the lenders own time to enforce the loan in the event of a default is probably not enforceable in the case of a $100 loan, even at minimum wage. Making small loans has historically been a marginal economic sector for precisely this reason. Even if the default rate is low, the administrative costs associated with making and enforcing (in the event of defaults) a small loan and the administrative costs associated with making and enforcing these promise for a much larger loan are similar. But the dollar amount of interest generated by a small loan is much smaller relative to the administrative costs involved than the interest on a large loan. Credit card companies and similar lenders make small loans affordable by automating the lending process, screening borrowers based upon credit ratings, making many loans each month to the same borrower, and making loans to many, many borrowers to spread the risk out. But making small loans on a one-off basis is not a profitable venture. Business models that charge enough to be profitable with small loans, like payday lenders and car title lenders in the United States, usually have some sort of collateral or de facto collateral (like a post-dated check), and tend to be shut down by regulators because their interest rates typically need to be on the order of 150%-400% per annum to make a profit, due to high administrative costs involved in making small loans relative to the amount of the loan. But interest rates this high are considered exploitive and are illegal. Another business model, which essentially describes the business model in the question except for the enforcement method, is called &quot;loan sharking&quot;. The main difference between legitimate or almost legitimate small loan lending and loan sharking, is that loan sharks enforce their loans by having organized crime enforcers beat up people who don't pay, rather than using lawsuits to deal with loan defaults. This is, of course, completely illegal and a serious crime.
In a civil action: If you are serving written discovery on a party, under the federal rules of civil procedure, or in any state whose adopted the model rules, (rules 33-37 typically), you need only send your requests for interrogatories, the production of documents, or for admissions to the party (through their counsel unless they are pro se), accompanied by the discovery notice, detailing the time frame in which they are due. It is typical that this time frame will get extended, sometimes by double or triple the original 21 day period plus 3-5 days for mailing. When the party is represented (this is 99% of the time) the attorney will just call you or email you for an extension and it is pro forma to assent to this. The court will not be happy if they need to seek permission of the court for this because you refused, as it is that common, and you will just get a reputation as a non-cooperative pain (not to mention, the time will come when you need an extension, and what comes around goes around). If they seek an unreasonable amount of time (I'm talking so close to the discovery cut off that you'd not have time for depositions after receipt), then you can limit it, but a couple of months is common. This need not go through the court. If they are not represented, they may just be late rather than calling, in which case you have a duty to contact them before involving the court. This is just because they don't know it is the norm, and it is nearly impossible to pull together everything needed from a full set of discovery in 21 days. When there is a true discovery dispute, you must show the court that you made all due diligent efforts to resolve it on your own. I don't have my rules in front of me (I will edit and add this when I do) ... but this is in the rules, it is not just practically speaking. Also, many jurisdictions require that you contact the court's clerk and get permission before filing any discovery motions. Sending a subpoena is not ever how this is dealt with. If the opposing party fails to respond, or if they are continually late and despite numerous contacts they still do not produce, then you would schedule a discovery conference with the court at which time you will seek a motion to compel. The court will typically give them even more time at this point. You are correct in that when a third-party is served with discovery request, since they have no obligation to take part in the case but for the presence of a subpoena; hence, in this situation you would use a subpoena to request whatever it is you are requesting. They may get their own lawyer who will try to limit your right to get anything from them as a non-essential party, but if it is really relevant you can do it. You would also use the subpoena for depositions, to ensure that witnesses present themselves. Otherwise, subpoenas are reserved for acquiring witnesses to appear in court or for custodians of records to bring records to court for hearings or trial.
Yes; While contracts can be made in written and oral form bigger acquisitions normally are in written form. Also consider this: They can't prove that they told you that the balcony is not usable. Thats a big negative in buying a property and they would need to have it documented. If they still refuse consider seeking professional help. In my country lawyers offer "fast help" that isn't legally binding but costs you only 10$ and helps you finding out if your case has any possibility to get accepted/if you're right. EDIT: Regarding the reservation fee: You can dismiss that. You didn't reserved that object, you reserved a house with balcony.
If two parties have a contract, where one party is required to do X in exchange for the other party doing Y, then the terms specified in that contract would determine what happens. You would have to see exactly what it says, especially if the other party has the option to not give you money. A contract might say "A shall at his option give B $5,000 by date X; if A elects not to make payment, notice must be given 60 days before X". Failing to give timely notice is thus breech of contract. However if the clause only says "A shall at his option give B $5,000 by date X", then there is no requirement for advance notice. And this assumes that there is a contract whereby both parties have some obligation to the other. A gift, on the other hand, carries no obligations on the giving party. There may be some social code to the effect that they should have told you by now, but failing to give advance notice is at most rude and certainly not legally actionable.
In general, "a signed piece of paper" is not "a contract". It may be a record of a contract, but the contract itself is the meeting of minds where an agreement is reached and doesn't depend on the existence of the piece of paper. (Depending on the jurisdiction, some sorts of contract are required to be in writing, but this doesn't usually apply to employment contracts; it's usually contracts involving land.) What is far more worrying to me is that you don't know how much they are going to pay you. That suggests there hasn't been a meeting of minds, and there is no contract. (It might be that "the going rate" is good enough to form a contract - to determine that would require advice from a local lawyer.) I suggest you don't write up a formal agreement, but nag your boss to decide how much they are actually going to pay you.
Can landlord backbill 4.5 years worth of utilities that were never billed to us bimonthly as directed in the lease? Yes, since the bimonthly billing issue appears to be within the LA statute of limitations for claims of breach of contract: 10 years (see here). But you might want to check the actual legislative language of the statute referred therein and the prior or consecutive ones --all pertaining to statutes of limitations-- so as to ascertain the accuracy of information in the first link (navigating through the bunch of LA two- or three-line statutes for this and that gets annoying). They are desperate to get me to move out since it is a rent-controlled unit and I feel like they have done this to cause issues and force me to default on rent. Is this a legal practice? I am not knowledgeable of state legislation particular to rent-controlled units, but I highly doubt it is lawful for them to proceed that way. Other details you describe reflect that the company has been --or is being-- malicious or grossly negligent. If so, strictly speaking, the company's conduct (1) ought to weaken its position or merits in trying to force you out, and (2) tends to contravene the contract law covenant of good faith and fair dealing (see below). If your lease mentions any statutes regarding rent-controlled units, you may want to search for case law at leagle.com to see how the statutes are applied. Without knowing the terms of your lease, I think your priority should at all times be the rent itself so as to avoid eviction. Does the "billing every two months" in the lease have any hold on this issue if they breached their own lease? Maybe not. The repeated, yet sole, failure to send you the bimonthly billings falls short of landlord's breach of contract. For your argument on breach of contract to prevail, you would have to prove that the landlord knowingly/deliberately let the water bills pile up prior to demanding you to pay everything at once. That would prove that the landlord is not meeting the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is prerequisite in contract law.
The relevant part of Texas law is in the property code, §§92.101-92.109 §92.104 allows them to "deduct from the deposit damages and charges for which the tenant is legally liable under the lease or as a result of breaching the lease", and then they must "give to the tenant the balance of the security deposit, if any, together with a written description and itemized list of all deductions" (except when there is uncontroversial rent owed). §92.109 states what the landlord's liability is, namely a landlord who in bad faith retains a security deposit in violation of this subchapter is liable for an amount equal to the sum of $100, three times the portion of the deposit wrongfully withheld, and the tenant's reasonable attorney's fees in a suit to recover the deposit. This requires bad faith, not just being wrong. If you dispute the deductions, you can sue the landlord to recover the deposit. The law also provides that "In an action brought by a tenant under this subchapter, the landlord has the burden of proving that the retention of any portion of the security deposit was reasonable". In order to extract more money from you for putative damages, the landlord will have to sue you and establish that there was an additional $2,000 damages. If the court finds that you did actually did damage the apartment, you may be ordered to compensate the landlord. Until you get such an order, you don't owe them anything; you may be able to recover the damage deposit if the "damage" was insignificant. This sketches the process of suing in Justice Court to get your deposit back, highlighting details like the demand letter that you might not have known you have to write. As far as your credit history is concerned, this is not entirely clear. The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates the industry of credit reporting, and crucially you can dispute false claims of debts. This does not prevent a person from making such a claim. I do not have an account with the Big 3 reporting services, so I don't know what their standards are for recording a putative debt. However, you can insert a suitable statement in your record disputing the validity of the claim. It is most likely that the landlord would sell the putative debt to a collection agency. That industry is regulated by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and there is a procedure about disputing an alleged debt.
In California, the small claims court has jurisdiction over claims up to $10,000. In order to have personal jurisdiction over him: He must have a summons and complaint hand delivered to him (or to certain other people such as an adult who lives in his household, or to his secretary if he has one). This is called "service of process" and there are professionals called "process servers" who can do this for you in most cities. The service of process can take place anywhere in the world and still be valid. The summons and complaint must be hand delivered by a person over the age of eighteen who is not a party to the lawsuit and is not your attorney. The events that form the basis of the lawsuit must have happened in California, not merely the United States (long arm personal jurisdiction), or he must have the summons and complaint personally hand delivered to him in the State of California (tag jurisdiction). If you win, either by default if he fails to respond by the deadline, or following a trial, you will get a piece of paper called a judgment that legally determines that he owes you $X, which you must then enforce. A judgment can be enforced, for example, by garnishing his bank accounts, garnishing monies due to him from an employer or from a sole proprietorship he operates, seizing tangible personal property that he owns with the assistance of a sheriff, or putting a lien on real estate he owns. A judgment from a California small claims court can only be enforced against assets in California. There is a relatively simple process for having a judgment from California turned into a judgment from any other U.S. state. There is a relatively difficult and expensive process for having a judgment from California turned into a judgment from England that only sometimes works because some aspects of the U.S. civil court system (like punitive damages) are considered to be against public policy in England and are thus not enforceable there. You cannot have someone arrested for failure to pay a civil judgment. Enforcing the judgment is likely to be much more difficult than getting the judgment in your case. It is also possible to make a criminal complaint if the acts genuinely constitute theft. If a prosecutor finds that there is probable cause to back up your claim, the prosecutor could obtain an arrest warrant from the court in the place where the theft took place and that could be served within California when the individual is present in California (i.e., he could be arrested in California, after which the criminal justice process would proceed). Generally, to constitute theft, it must be intentional and must not be a mere breach of an agreement, in which case it is a breach of contract rather than theft. Any theft small enough to be addressed in small claims court would probably not be considered serious enough for the government to request extradition from the U.K. for, a step usually reserved for serious felonies, but if extradiction was sought from the U.K., the process on the U.K. side is described here. Any extradiction request would be handled by the prosecutor's office and law enforcement, in cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies.