Re: verbal agreement broken, what should I do????
- From: mm <NOPSAMmm2005@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 05:37:53 -0400
On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:07:31 -0700, JHF_2@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
A few years back, the brother asked if he could tap onto our drilled
well because his shallow well had gone dry. Our answer was immediately
yes with the verbal agreement that if anything was to fail, the cost
of repair would be split.
This doesn't seem very fair to me. You've been using it for 18 years
ann they've been using it only "a few years".
They used the water with no issues until
they built a new house on the same land a drilled a well of their own.
Segway to a few months ago.....
I think a segway is a two-wheeled vehicle. You mean segue, with an
accent over the e, but I just omit the accent marks.
Said brother decides that he wants his youngest son to move in beside
him. A second hand mobile home is purchased and placedd on the corner
of his lot about 20 feet from where my well is located. Everything is
fine! Everyone helps get the place up to move in condition. My wife
and I are again asked by the brother, not the son, if his boy could
tap into our well. Again our answer was an immediate yes. There was
Of course, like you say, it's the right thing to do.
never any thought about this because in my mind it was the right thing
to do. The same verbal agreement was made between the boy and us. He
offered to pay us monthly for usage and we told him it was not
necessary we just wanted assurance that if anything was to fail he
would help with the repair costs.Anyways everything is done, the boy
moves in and there are no problems.
Then the problems begin! I noticed one morning that my pump was
running constantly. I called repair they came up, looked things over
and determined that I had a leak somewhere. Needing water I told him
to come back tomorrow and fix the problem. The bill for the first
night was $100.00. He came back the next day and replaced the pump,
problem solved. The bill for this repair was about $1170.00. The total
for everything was $1270.00. This is just the cost of the well company
coming up, there were some incidental expenses that were incured in an
attempt to fix the problem myself. My nephew was informed on that
night what the total expense was and was told that he could pay me
what he could afford in payments.
So he's been in this agreement for less than a year? How long? And
you want 635 from him?
If he's been involved a full year, and you 18, I think he should owe
about 1/19 of the bill, roughly 65 dollars.
Your discussion was only verbal. You may remember it well because you
had time to think about what you wanted to say before you made the
first agreement with the parents, and then years to think about it
after that, but he may not remember what was said, while you were
rattling it off, and he probably just nodded because you are the adult
and he thought you would only suggest something that was fair.
So about 2 months have gone by. My nephew decides that he needs a new
truck. My wife is talking to her mother and makes the statement that,
"we still have not been paid 1 penny toward the well repair" and her
mother informs he that the nephew feels that he has helped us enough
that he calls things even.
He shouldn't have said that. When you asked for the money, he should
have come to you and discussed it, without keeping you waiting 2
months. And then the mother made a mistake, maybe, by allowing
herself to be in the middle of things. She was just reporting what
her nephew?, son? feels, so do don't blame her.
He dug a small ditch for me with an
excavator that he BORROWED from his boss.
He owes his boss a favor now. Did you have an excavator? No. But
because of him, you had one to use.
Not one penny out of his
pocket, the bosses truck to move it, the bosses fuel to run it. The
Now he owes the boss 3 favors. Or he filled up the tank before he
returned the truck. Whichever it is, it is not your concern.
only thing that he had into it was time. THE KICKER IS THAT HE OFFERED
TO DO THIS, I DID NOT ASK HIM TO!!!!!!.
YOu let him do it, didn't you? If he hadn't, who would have? You, or
you'd have to pay someone.
Yes, you never agreed to pay or to allow it to cancel well bills. But
he was acting like family. Now you act like family and amend the
contract in your head to match what is reasonable. Each owes in
proportion to how much he used the well.
A little while later I was
building something and he came down and helped me. AGAIN I NEVER ASKED
FOR HIS HELP, HE OFFERED IT. THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING SAID THAT HIS
HELP WAS IN PLACE OF PAYMENT.
I want to teach him a life lesson and shut off the water.No pay-No
How old is the son? How old are you? 18 years using the well so I
bet you're 15 or 20 years older than he is. You should never have
dragged him into such a one sided agreement that someone in his shoes
going to want to ignore when it comes time to pay.
He should never have agreed to it, but he's young and didn't foresee
what would happen.
Or maybe he's a partial deadbeat -- I don't know him -- but you set
him up. I can come up with 650 on a day's notice, but I gather a lot
of people, especially young people, can't.
Paying it in payments doesn't make it any less.
play!!!! If I do this it opens up a 18 year old argument from my wifes
brother( that I am really sick of hearing) that the water sits on his
land. Because this was done 100% legal there is nothing he can do
about it.
If you disconnect the water for this, I'd think much less of you.
You're going to teach him a lesson! You're the older one. You made a
complicated, unfair agreement with a boy 10 or 20 years younger than
you. Who may have trusted you because you're family, and may have
just assumed it was fair. You made several mistakes, and you're not
in a position to teach a lesson on this occasion.
Suck it up, be a man, and take the loss, which is only 65 dollars,
despite what you got him to agree to.
Is my thinking correct? Any other advice on how to resolve this issue?
Say you've thought about it some more, and if you think you will get
it, aSk him for 65 dollars. If not, forget it, don't sue, and don't
lend him any money in the future, and don't get involved in contracts
with family. And don't go into business with family, or sell them
your used car, or buy one from them. You can always say you promised
your old car to a guy at work, and you don't want there's because
you're going to fix yours, or you want to buy a certain style. Try
real hard not to mix money and family.
Hopefully they will be your family for the rest of your life, and you
theirs. Don't fight about money. There will be times when some of
the rest of the family think you're way of thinking is wrong, like you
think his is. In a well-working family, everyone ignores such times.
Come up with a more fair-written contract for the future. Give him a
couple days to read it and suggest changes. If you can't agree, get
someone to arbitrate. Have someone who doesn't know the rest of your
family read it to tell you if it is fair even before you present it to
the nephew. Proportion the costs according to the years of use. So
that in 18 more years, when he has used it for 18 years and you for
36, you'll pay 2/3rds. Except for the pump, which is new and you are
both starting fresh on, so that will be 50-50. If you can determine
how much it costs for the water, electricity I guess, you can charge
for that too, as he offered to pay in the first place.
Written down and signed.
If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)
.
- References:
- verbal agreement broken, what should I do????
- From: JHF_2
- verbal agreement broken, what should I do????
- Prev by Date: Re: bank teller mistake..legal issue
- Next by Date: Re: bank teller mistake..legal issue
- Previous by thread: Re: verbal agreement broken, what should I do????
- Next by thread: bank teller mistake..legal issue
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
