Yet more advice: settling a debt (English legal advice)

[FrustratedPoet]

That still means you know 100 times more about it than I do.

[CerberusIV]

I used to work at Sheffield Polytechnic (a long time ago - they pretend it's a university now). The year end was either July or August. They also had a rule about closing the books on some courses six months after the end of the course. That one used to drive the finance assistants crazy as they tried to persuade certain lecturers to submit expenses claims before they were out of time.

[MRT144]

challenge them to a drinking contest. pray they arent scottish

[KrazyHorse]

Upon finding out they had been paid triple the normal amount most people would think "Holy ****! They're gonna be pissed when they find out about this! I'd better tell them about it now and get it sorted out before they come knocking on my door asking for it back."

I wouldn't

Keep the cash, don't spend it and play dumb when they come looking.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by MRT144
challenge them to a drinking contest. pray they arent scottish

If they were Scottish I doubt they would have been so generous in the first place.

[MRT144]

[Buck Birdseed]

Strange laws- what's given to me should be mine no matter what the reasoning behind it was.

[Immortal Wombat]

Herpes?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
If you suddenly saw that kind of money in front of you,

I commonly handle many times that amount of other peoples money, with little accountability and less auditability, and without misapplying a penny of it.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Strange laws- what's given to me should be mine no matter what the reasoning behind it was.

Not so strange. The idea is that a person cannot enrich themselves to the detriment of another if they "snap up" an offer that is clearly a mistake. If a car dealer gave you a sale contract with a zero missing throughout so the car was sold for 3, 000 instead of 30,000 , do you think you should have been able to enforce that?


Provost has no legal grounds to retain the money but I remain of the opinion that legal action is unlikely and of no benefit to the university. It appears that he has nothing that could immediately satisfy a judgement so a judgement would only get them periodic payments as has already been offered.


Laz,

Theft? Highly unlikely, unless your statute is incredibly different than others I have seen. He is no worse than a business that is unable to pay a bill they legitimately owe . . . or are those folks considered to have committed theft as well??

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Flubber

Laz,

Theft? Highly unlikely, unless your statute is incredibly different than others I have seen. He is no worse than a business that is unable to pay a bill they legitimately owe . . . or are those folks considered to have committed theft as well??

Not at all. There's no Mens Rea. If the debt was incurred legitimately, but later circumstances mean they were unable to repay it then there has been no intention to dishonestly deprive the legal owner of the benefit of the funds.

If, on the other hand, the debtor knew they never had any chance of repaying the debt (but concealed this fact) then the Mens Rea is present and the theft laws apply.

In this case, PH knew he had received this money by mistake, and by not informing the provider then he has demonstrated the intention to deprive the true owner of the benefit of the funds. It's clear-cut, and I think you'll find your own laws will reflect this similarly.

[Flubber]

hmmm

Did provost have to take a positive act of cashing a check or something since I got the sense these funds were directly deposited in his account. If he had left them there and never touched them, there would be no problem since he would have commited no act ( actus reus ? my crim. law is rusty and my latin was always terrible)-- Barring a strict or absolute liability statute, complete and utter inaction is not a crime--

If I take your point, the act of spending some of the money would be the act and evidence of guilty intent as well. I agree that this is where he enters more questionable grounds. But wouldn't provost have a ready made defence on intent if he is simply a bad bookkeeper or keeps bad records ( you know, I forgot about this automatic debit charge or that and before I knew it I was into their money). Seems like raising reasonable doubt on this would be easy. Call it the irresponsible youth defence .

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Oh he may well get away with it, and I doubt it would go to a criminal court. It would be far more likely to go to a civil (County) court for a judgement, with no penalty more severe than a CCJ involved. However CCJ's aren't something you want to get, unless you do want any form of credit application for the next few years.