A friend is a dancer and is in a devastating legal situation. A company is suiting to foreclose on her home and property, plus interest and legal fees. She came to be in this trouble by developing a trusting ITC relationship with an extraordinarily good regular.
This man began coming in and spending on her (and only her) in mid-March of 2010. He would come in and take her to vip for a minimum of 3 hours each of 3 days per week. The business man maintained this routine until his very much unexpected death (age 59). It did not take him very many visits to feel comfortable with her. He then stressed that he enjoyed helping certain people whom he felt good about. He early on pressed her to let him pay for her to have a health condition relieved. She declined this.
In the vip for so many hours he would bring movies which they would watch together. Other times, he would give her a book to read. When she had finished it, they would discuss it. Him pointing out subtle elements of it. Clearly intending to broaden her perspectives.
He shared with her about his family and the frustrations he had about those individuals. This stuff was very much in depth. She shared with him about her SO. He did not think her SO was good for her. They had enough trust of each other to share so much. He never tried to make it overtly sexual with her. Everything said that he was sincere about wanting her future to be secure.
He knew that her car was old and had some problems. He wanted to buy her a new vehicle. She would not let him do this. He convinced her to let him pay half on a vehicle and she would pay him the other half. Part of the way into the pay off of this vehicle (He made no written agreement), he convinced her that she ought to own her own place. He pledged to help her in this. She agreed to this if he would let her out of the vehicle deal. He did so.
His pledge was that he would provide her a lump sum to cash out the property of her choice. She would then pay him back. This would be done using a proper loan agreement. He explained that this would reduce the likelihood of IRS scrutiny.
She found a place. He presented the loan agreement. She signed it and was given the check. Before the day was out she had already paid back some of the loan. The totality of the loan was paid back quickly as she simply paid him out of what he owed for the vip each of the 3 days per week that he visited her.
It is to be noted that he could not witness her signature to the loan document as he was both a founding member of the company the money was drawn on and he was the loan originator. Note further that the document was never witnessed. It never received a witness signature. Still further please note that he choose not file the document as a lean against her property at the Register of Deeds office. He had assured her that the document would never see day light.
A thing about this loan that bothered her was that he did not giver her receipts for her payments. While this bothered her, she also trusted him. Those times that she asked about the document, he told her that he still needed to destroy it.
There will have been some 3 months between the loan being paid off and his death. In this time, he never documented that payments had been made nor that payment in full had been received. Neither had he made mention of this deal or her in his will. (He shared with her that their were others whom he had taken care of in his will and some in life insurance policies.)
Here I will take us on a serious but different issue for a moment. On learning of his death, she asked her own lawyer to return some of his possessions. She also asked of her lawyer to retrieve her financial records from the deceased's office. The office has not complied to this day. I do not know the details of why, but her 2011 taxes have not been done even yet. Please offer advise regarding this as well.
Now back to the law suit. After his death in January 2012, his friend and lawyer (even to the estate) has found this loan document and no record of payments. In March of this year her regular's lawyer sent her a 1 page letter informing her of finding the loan document with no record of payments. He asked that she contact him on a specific day. She did try to do this. Ultimately getting no further than to leave a message with his sectrary. He never returned her effort. She asked her lawyer to make contact. Again this was met with no response.
6/05/2012 The Register of Deeds office shows that a suit was filed. This suit was to claim the property, interest, and legal fees.
7/17/2012 16:04.13 This suit was discharged . Her lawyer found that the suit was discharge for some as yet unknown breach of contract.
7/17/2012 16:04.29 The suit was refiled.
She never received notice of the first filing. Indeed, the only contact she had had from the estate's lawyer was the 1 page letter in March and a packet containing the suit and pertinent documents which was hand delivered the morning of September 13, 2012. That is 2 months after the suit was filed that she received first notice of it.
Her lawyer is not part of a partnership. I have never really needed legal representation. I know nothing about this lawyer nor, really, any others. I can not help but wonder if more legal minds would equal better defense. I have no clue what legal specialty might best serve her needs. I also wonder if it would be prudent to have a private investigator find out what her regular might have said or written to his close friends regarding her. She has no receipts of payments, only her word.
When she heard of his death, she knew she was in enormous trouble. That she allowed him to keep that document without noting the payments is tearing her apart now. In the moment, he seemed healthy. There seemed time to deal with it. She feels that she is about to lose everything. More, because that document was not destroyed she will be scrutinized by the IRS.
Please, if any of you can help to point her to the type of legal minds she needs on her side, please share.
I asked her permission to write and post this plea. She has allowed me to do this. It is my intent to present her with each response. If the responses are of a nature that will leave her even more desolate, I may edit or hold back.







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