Can you sue someone if you gave them the use of your accounts to pay bills for you but they took the money for themselves instead?
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Can you sue someone if you gave them the use of your accounts to pay bills for you but they took the money for themselves instead?
To further detail, let’s say you needed a little help with sorting out your debts, so you put your daughter/son in charge of the finances, especially in order to pay the house note which is most important. But instead of paying it, you find out that you’re thousands of dollars behind and they’ve taken the money, but you have no clue what they did with it. You’ve put it in their name but it is your money they took and didn’t pay the house note. Would you be able to sue them for the money they took? Or for anything?
Asked on July 14, 2011 under Bankruptcy Law, Washington
Answers:
FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 12 years ago | Contributor
If you allowed someone to manage your assets with the clear expectation that those assets (including bank accounts) would be managed and used by the third person solely for your benefit but were not, that person has significant legal problems from a civil and criminal perspective.
However, if you placed a bank account in a person's name then the laws in most States are that there is a presumption that the person whose name is on the bank account is the owner and can do whatever he or she wishes to do with the bank account, including using the money for his or her own benefit and not yours.
Is this what happended?
If you placed your bank accounts in a third person's name and that person used the money for purposes not agreed to between you and them, you created a problem for yourself and if you want the money back, you need to first try to get repayment back voluntarily and if that doe not work, you will have to become involved in a court action.
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