QUOTE (Dan_Eisenhauer @ Feb 17 2009, 06:37 PM) Alex, this is going to end up being a personal choice for you... friendship or money??? My suspicion is that the friendship will go down the tubes no matter what you decide. If you keep the money, the friend will feel cheated. If you refund the money, you will feel cheated. You are in a no win situation. The friend has already made his choice.
I do not envy your position. If it were me, I would keep the money. The friendship would never be the same again, no matter what you decide.
Not knowing what you used for documentation, I can only assume you are on solid ground. You do not need either a lease or Option Agreement notarized by a lawyer, which is what I assume they are talking about.
I thought i will just give you an update on this experience so that we can learn from it. I proposed a 50/50 on the cost of the renovation and give them back the S/D with interest. They did not take up the offer, the "adviser" interpreted this as weakness and advised them to go for the whole 9 yards. The offer lapse without them exercising it.
They move out with some minor damages. We gave them back the S/D as promised as soon as possible. As the wife was calling 50 - 60 times / day on our cell phone - we decide to not called the police for the sake of their immigration status and 20+ years of friendship.
When we have new tenant, the wife went to the house to bad-mouth on us. The sister and the sister-in-law (which we help to look for employers to bring them to Canada) has made it their personal mission in life to destroy our business. Their employers were our good friends that we made when we started our foreign workers recruitment business.
The experience that i learn is:
a. Never rent to good friends.
b. In God we trust, all others bring papers - if not for the legal agreement, i would be in bigger trouble.
c. Never mix business with personal help.